André-Ernest-Modest Grétry

ON TRUTH

WHAT WE WEREWHAT WE ARE

WHAT WE OUGHT TO BE

FOREWORD

A man of letters among my friends, the Abbé Rozier, whom savants and people of good will always miss1, asked meto write to him regarding the successive events of our revolution, such as they passed before my eyes in the capital. The newspapers, he told me, contradict each other, and I would be charmed to know the opinion of an impartial man. I put at the head of the letter that I sent to him:

What we are.

After this, some children playing with each other2 gave methe idea of adding two letters to this first one: one

before, the other after, with the titles of What we were.

What we ought to be.

Here, in two words, is the origin of this writing for which I have not preserved the epistolary form, because my subject, being quite extended, has taken on another character. I will observe, nevertheless, that these three propositions are not relative to all peoples. The first proposition has to do with the Gauls, later dispersed into Italy, and into the empire of the Orient. The second is onlyin connection with France during the time of its revolution.But the third is relative to man in general, with the man ofevery country that is more or less well-ordered.

1 (G): A bomb destroyed him in his bed, during the siege of Lyon, the first yearof the Republic. 2 (G): See the Introduction.

In seeing appear this second literary work3, one will ask, perhaps, why, after having composed music over thirty years, I have neglected it in order to devote myself to labors foreign to my true talent. In order not to appear a bizarre man who quits the certain for the uncertain; so thatit will not be thought that, avid for various sorts of reputations, I am unable to remain in the place of artist that the men of my age have accorded me, I will say my reasons. After having written more than fifty operas in every genre, I think that today the public would not like tosee me wasting a talent that was dear to it; it would say “let him rest after his long labors, and let him not degradewhat he has deserved in his reputation, by making musical works feebler than those of his youth. Furthermore, I say frankly, whether because of advancing age, or because republics are not the lands of illusions, today music has less interest for me than formerly. The great number of works that have issued from my pen, the immense quantity of sensations that they have made me experience, have, I think,produced in me ideas more determinate than those of the musician, and I need to fix them.

Music, no one doubts, is of all the arts the one which

provides the most sensations. It favorably disposes to all the sentimental sciences; and those exact sciences are also found, comparatively, in the connections which exist betweensounds. The ancient philosophers there saw the model for all the sciences, and especially for astronomy; the place that the stars occupy in the sky is, they said, based on harmonically calculated sounds; for these extraordinary philosophers, there only existed one harmony in the universe, for which the harmony of sounds was the simulacrum4. I do not infer from this, that I am a literary figure, because I am a musician; firstly, I have no memory, neither local, nor material; I can thus only have a limited

3 (G): The first is titled: Memoirs or Essays on Music: three volumes in octavo,printed in year 5, at the expenses of the nation (1797). 4 TN: Pensées of Cicero, p. 207

erudition; and if present facts and objects do not awaken inme the idea of those whom I have known, they will remain extinguished forever. But I possess an erudition of sensations, a sentimental memory which can dispute, perhaps,with that of the facts that one acquires in books.

Without counting men who are null, there are two sorts of literary figures, as there are two sorts of artists: ones, impelled by a lively imagination, communicate hot, brilliant, and sometimes exaggerated sensations; the others are able to put greater order in ideas which have already been found5. The former are creators, men of genius; the latter, organizers, and actual artists. This alone would show that there is no unity in man; that he sins through that which he has in excess, as through that which he is lacking; that he is poor in his wealth, as he is in his poverty; that two powers command him, the soul and the body;and that these two powers are often in opposition with each other.

Why, then, does the soul not have preponderance over the body, since it is a divine seed? Why is it not the same in the coarse peasant or the educated man? It is the same, one could say; but enchained to the body until its destruction, the body is an envelope susceptible to degrees of perfection; if the envelope is coarse, the soul appears but little; if is subtle, the soul appears there almost uncovered. It is not with their soul that the erudite rectify exalted ideas, it is with their reason: they cause their imagination to be silent, or, to put in a better way, for them reason is only strong because their imagination says nothing. Without going farther with this digression, and to wisely remain between too much and too little, let usreturn to our subject. After having avowed the little need which I feel to compose music; the need that I have of setting down in fixed form the ideas which it has caused to be born in me, and the real need to be busy after having

5 (G): If Diderot and Condillac had had only one, we would have had the man thatone would perhaps never see.

been so during my entire life, I give this work to the public. If it is good, society will profit here by the pre-eminence that directly instructive works will always have over those that aim to please, which seduce us before instructing us. If it is only mediocre, and even less, it will still profit, however little this may be; for, if I were not occupied with this, most often I would have done nothing at all. Today, I repeat, musical language is too vague for me; having arrived almost at old age, I need something more positive. The man of all ages is charmed by the attraction of the fine arts, but their profession, whereit is connected with genius, is only fitting for the age where the imagination and its sweet attraction are at their full force. It is time to prepare my retirement, and philosophy, reason, which are the same thing, are now my inheritance.

My writings are the result of more than forty years of reflections; given the weakness of my chest, I have, my whole life long, concentrated the ideas that were difficult for me to communicate; I put into music the little spirit that nature had given me, because I did not have then other means of explaining myself. But if I have been able to speakin music, it is easier for me to speak in prose; and this prose, denuded of all attraction, will last longer than my music. It is when they will have read me well, that they will be able to say whether this is worth a dramatic work such as I could have made.

Another consideration has not held me back at all: I know that one does not obtain two reputations; that that of musician is the only one that I will be accorded while I live; that had I written well, had I deepened the human heart more than any other, rendered more clear moral truths by basing them on physical truths; final, had the connections of things with man been better developed her than they ever had been….I know that one will not know, thatone will only say this after me, and I have taken there-above my part in advance. In spite of my dramatic successes,

and the enemies that they produce, I have been able to live in peace over sixty years; I have but a few years to live, but my first reputation is sufficient for me; I expect nothing more from living men, and I know what men to come will think of me.

If, in reviewing this book, some journalist used the phrase which became banal during the century of immoralities; if he said that it is the dream of an honest man, I would think that his dreams are for him the gilded lies that one practices with so much grace and spirit in oursocieties.

I do not dissemble, however, how much the task that I am undertaking is beyond my forces. Everyone knows what we were; everyone sees what we are6, but the third proposition,the only important one, to say what we should be, is the mystery of human perfectibility. Let us make vows, nevertheless, let us multiply our efforts to improve man. Inthis century, we talk much regarding the perfectibility of man; I do more here, I give the solution for the problem. The defect of our moral books has always been that of putting the emphasis on our ills, without indicating the remedy. What I would like to express is in me, I feel it, I am convinced of it; but will I be able to say it as is fitting? In any case, in seeking to develop my ideas in order to communicate them to others, in discussing them withmyself, I will strengthen the honest sentiments that are in me: it is sweet to descend into one’s heart, and to always find good company there.

In finishing these preliminaries, I should also say, that in writing my Essays on Music, I was forced to restrictmy ideas; and that I already sensed the necessity of making a more developed work. I talked then with musicians for whomoverly deep developments of a metaphysical, physical, or moral proposition would have been useless, and would at the

6 (G): These two propositions only being the preliminary part of the work, they should form its introduction.

same time have given the work of which I am speaking a varnish of pedantry that I wanted to avoid. But, since my present subject allows it, I regard as an advantage to be able here repair some voluntary omissions.

May the majesty of the subject that I will discuss soonelevate me to its level! May I speak of social harmony with as much success as they have flattered me with having developed with respect to music and all the arts! In changing the subject, it is still harmony having as its basis the truth, but a more severe truth, which will guide me until the end of this work.

Historical IntroductionOrigin and motives for this work

I observed in Paris some young people who were playing in the Champs Elysées. What game were they occupied with? Theyformed a large, irregular squad; they divided themselves into pairs by sticking their shoulders against each other; and all of them, or the majority, in standing on their tiptoes as much as possible, cried out: It’s me, I am the tallest! In observing them, I said to myself: These children will grow, and nevertheless their whole life long they will play this same game; and this game with which they are occupied is one which men of all ages have played. These young people, I said to myself, further, present to us the mirror of what we were, what we are, and what we will be; this game, in a word, is that of the innate amour-propre in man. Here is howa children’s game would become the seed for a vast subject of morality, if a pen more eloquent than mine were to treat it.7. Yes, it is easy to show that man seeks endlessly to 7 (G): This subject, which has occupied me since year 3 of the Republic, when I had completed my Essays on Music, which appeared in year 5; this subject, I say,had been conceived by Condorcet. The idea of this great work was printed aftger the baleful death of this celebrated man, under the title of Sketch of an historical table of the progress of the human spirit. One sees that Condorcet believed the human species to be susceptible of infinite perfections. He does not reject as imaginary the possibility of extending our life well beyond known limits. Page 380.

Duclos had said, a long time prior to Condorcet: “I do not know whether I have an overly good opinion of my century; but it seems to me that there is a certain fermentation of universal reason, which to be developed, which one will perhaps allow to dissipate, and with which one could assure, direct, and hasten progress through a well-understood education. Considerations on Mores, fifth edition, pages 54 et 55.

In his Sketch, Condorcet takes a look at the past, the present, and the future. Towards the end of this brochure, one hears him endlessly say: “I will let it be seen…I will prove….I will demonstrate….How philosophy and the philanthropes of the world should regret than a work of this importance, and done by such a man, should have only been sketched out! It belonged to Condorcet to analytically trace the progress and the solution of the faculties of man, and not to a weak pen such as mine.

raise himself above others; that he does not do anything except for his pleasure; that he sacrifices everything to his personal interest. But in acting thus, does he find the happiness that he runs after? No; everyone does the same as he does, and from this general struggle, an interminable combat results; and soon,

Le combat finiroit faute de combattans8,

if the inheritors of these same men and their penchant eternalized the same war.

Today, when men are generally more educated; today whenwe try, when we succeed in casting more light on physical truths, it is fitting, at the same time, to research whetherthere is not a means of giving more strength and brilliance to the moral verities that we violate without ceasing. What would be the point of our first successes if they did not contribute to making us better and happier? In order to succeed in this, it is necessary to re-establish truth in all its splendor; it is necessary to say, to unceasingly repeat, that without it all is disorder, that through it allis for the best in all cases and in all points of morality. In the last century, in our days, just a little while ago, the amour-propre of the subjugated man cried out to him: Stand up! Now that he is standing, it is necessary for this same amour-propre, more enlightened, to warn him to always be in his natural measure, or else the power which has regenerated him will make him fall once more.

WHAT WE WERE.About the times of Barbarity and Feudality.

Formerly France, too ignorant, could not inherit eithervirtues nor even vices from the Romans, their conquerors. The moral distance was so great between these two peoples, 8 TN: The combat would finish for lack of combatants.

that we remained, after having been conquered, almost as brutish as before. We find some remarks on the character of the peoples of the North in the Commentaries of Caesar and in Tacitus. After the Alps, these historians found us frivolous; in advancing toward the North, a more than inflexible character. Oh! How these peoples, then barbarian,needed music in order to humanize themselves! a rigaudon could be sufficient for the French; but for the Flemish, theDutch, the English, the German, all of harmony was necessary, not to change them, but to temper their original asperity. In addition, although music is still like an exotic plant for these peoples, they seek it out, because itsweetens their character. The French are happy without the aid of harmony, and generally they love it less. The English, I know this, are, of all these peoples of the North, the ones who seem to least sense a need for music; but they would sense this need, if as an island-dweller, they were not concerned with their safety; if, as a republican, they did not hold the reins of their government;and above all, if, as businessmen, they were not absorbed intheir commerce.

Music, this specific balm against melancholy, must be dear to the English, and by instinct they must feel, more than other peoples, that nature causes us to know the remedy, that she always places near the ill, as virtues are close to vices in order to combat them and rectify them.

What confusion, what barbarism do we not observe in the mores of the untamed Gauls, restless, inconstant, subject only to the Druids, who, with mistletoe in their hands, nevertheless imposed their will on these ferocious peoples! What a singular picture is that of the mores of theFranks, from Pharamond9 to François I, where a spark of public spirit seemed to show by which road we might issue from the chaos! Around this time, a precursor to the Enlightenment,Rabelais, Amyot, Montaigne, Charron, and some other men of genius10 9 TN: Legendary king of the Franks (ca. 370-427). 10 (G): Some monks still cultivated the sciences within their retreats; but the

present us with a striking contrast to their contemporaries.

What a nobly grotesque spectacle is that of the peoplesof the North, running over hill and dale, armed from head tofoot, and followed by their squires! The Gauls, covered with suzerains, almost always at war with each other; or, when war had ceased, inviting each other to huge feasts, in order to get drunk, waiting for the gift-giving to be done in order to give each other terrible blows, causing contusions and broad wounds in the noble jousting of a tourney. The respect that these gallant knights had for their lades is the sole sentiment which still endows these ancient times with a varnish of decency and esteem; and without this sweet influence of the female sex, which repressed the natural tendencies of these unpoliced men, blood, as much as wine, would have flowed at their knightly festivities.

With regard to the priests, they were able to profit bythe ignorance and disorder which reigned in these romantic heads; they were able to profit by all the warlike and religious sentiments of our knights; they were mediators between the parties; they directed consciences; they were included, more or less, in the wills 11; and in order to invade everything in a single stroke, they created the war of the Crusades, under the pretext of reconquering the holy lands, where our crusading knights, and errant by nature, ran in throngs; while leaving their beautiful and constant girlfriends, and all their goods, in the keeping of the monks. This couplet by Sèdaine, in the opera Richard Cœur de

general spirt of these anchorite scholars was that of their order; they did not at all seek to enlighten men, on the contrary, they wished them ignorant in order to preserve their dominion. Nevertheless, one must admit that the monkish societies were reservoirs useful to the larger society. There the sciences and letters were preserved during the times of barbarism; there, the immense goods that they acquired over the passage of time always ended by returning to the coffers of the State, the laws of which only recognized the monks as enjoying usufruct. 11 (G): Ancient contracts attest to the ignorance of these times; they often state: Monseigneur not knowing how to write, he has placed his finger in the ink, and has placed it on this paper.

Lion, indicates what we have just said.

Qu'un seigneur, qu'un haut baron Vende jusqu'à son donjon, Pour aller à la croisade, Qu’il laisse sa camaradeDans les mains de gens de bien12: C'est bien, C'est bien, Cela ne nous blesse en rien. Moi, je pense comme Grégoire,

J’aime mieux boire13.

Tasso eternalized the memory of the valiant warriors who shined in the crusades. Renaud, Roland, Richardet, Olivier, Baudouin….Purged the land of the felons infesting it; they did not cease to protect innocence and honor beauty; but the historyof the people of that time is none the less this.

Slave of the great, overwhelmed by all the moral chains, he was stultified more than the vilest animal, who resists still sometimes, through instinct, an absolute abandon. Obliged to beat the water when milord wanted to fish; to beat the bushes when he wanted to hunt; to work in order to keep his parks, his forests, and his roads; to wagewar against his enemies when he commanded…, and hung for theleast resistance to all these servitudes: here is the way inwhich the powerful man treats his slave, when the latter hasthe good will to let him do it. What pleasure, then, remained for peasants in order to make them bear life? That of caressing their wives? Yes; but milord still had his right over all the marriageable girls, and each of them owedher first fruits to her lord. Can one foresee, can one conceive what sort of infamies were plotted by the 12 (G): The priests, indicated ironically. 13 TN: That a lord, a high baron/Should sell even his donjon/ To go crusading/That he should leave his lady friend/In the hands of people of good: /Fine, Fine/This does us no harm/Me, I think like Gregory/I prefer to drink.

subalterns of the lords for this object, ever interesting for man, and always his first pleasure! If nature was mute among the prettiest girls, let us not doubt this, in order to provoke them and cause their senses to speak seductive emissaries were employed in order to tempt innocence or virtue. If they were without charms, without attractions, off-putting, then, in order to marry, it was necessary to satisfy the droit du seigneur; then each night a vile lackey would certainly carry out the functions of the master, who would not want to lose such a fine right. Oh what a horribleanimal is the powerful man in his ignorance! No instinct, noreason, all pride and brutality; this is less than a beast. Did you think of this, Jean-Jacques, when you said that man lost in becoming civilized and educated? It was to be eloquent that you supported this paradox. Oh! If you had described the wonders of ignorance, you would have been yet more eloquent14!

What happy chances had to be combined for man to know his ignorance! What efforts he had to make to leave it! But the progression is slow; it is only step by step that man isable to shed the prejudices with which he his imbued. He needs to see, one hundred times, a good thing done before his eyes; he needs to have it repeated to him a hundred times that he is in error for him to believe it. Happy the man who, from the time of his birth, sees gleaming everywhere around him the light which guides him!

I remember the prejudices which reigned in Liége in thedays of my youth. The priests, the monks were idols whom we revered out of respect for religion. One heard everywherea monk preaching patience and resignation to the miserable people; and, in their degradation, this poor people, which Iwas part of, did not disdain to feed on the overflow from the rich monasteries which surrounded them on all sides. In Rome, I was struck by a contrast frightening for every man

14 (G): For a long time it has been noted that, with the pen of a skilled man, atext becomes more eloquent in proportion to the degree that the facts become less probable.

from the North; I saw a people religious and immoral at the same time. The ardor of their climate leads the Italians to the pleasures of the senses; their excessive sensitivity makes them devout and superstitious. A woman, Jupiter or Jesus Christ, it matters not, this people needs idolatry. In Liége, then, I was stultified by the prejudices of ignorance; among the Romans, fallen from their ancient character, I learned music, and I felt the happiness of existence.

Research into oneself and one’s faculties, the spirit of analysis, the idea of abstractions, are nearly null in the land of sensations; thought remains extinguished beneaththe charm of the voluptuousness of the climate; the secret restlessness which causes one to seek out the best of what one is, only belongs to the men of the North, because they feel the need of it. It is in Geneva, it is with Voltaire, it is in Paris, that I saw men seeking the best of everything; turn by turn, ardent enough to exalt excess; moderate enough to hold back illusory impulses; calm and deep enough to scrutinize the human heart; cold enough to analyze thought and to divide even the rays of day.

But let us return to our subject. If the priests inherited from the knights who ran to the Crusades, and did not return; very happily for those times of barbarism and continual anarchy among the lords, the Kings of France also profited from the weakening of the suzerains in order to extend their dominion. To the degree that kings dominated France, a strong unity was consolidated. The sciences and letters then cultivated in Tuscany, under the reigns of the Medici, began to flourish in Paris, through the protection granted to them by François I, who loved them and cultivated them himself15.

15 (G): Few people know the epitaph for the beautiful Laura, made by François I.when passing through Avignon, and which is still engraved on the tomb of this celebrated woman in the church of the Franciscans in this city.

En petit lieu, compris, vous pouvez voirCe qui comprend beaucoup par renommée ;

After François I, until Louis XIV, the efforts of the human spirit towards the science were concentrated. Chivalry, religion, the wars that religion produced, and theerrant life of the men of these times, everything was opposed to impulses of genius. Good taste was still far fromreigning; Balzac, Voiture, Benserade16, were still admired, and this admiration should have only been for the inimitable Michel de Montaigne who had preceded them; for Malherbe, poet full of verve, and for the immortal René Descartes, precursor of Newton: but like water held back for a long time precipitates itself when the obstacle is removed, we see Louis XIV, through his nobly pompous reign capture all the eyes of established Europe. Honoring genius everywhere, the princes his neighbors saw among them with pleasure theirscholars pensioned by Louis, and decorated with his honors. Like stars of light, a crowd of great men appeared then and forever dissipated the tenebrous phantoms of ignorance. Corneille, Fontenelle, Boileau, la Fontaine, Fénélon, Racine, Molière and the young Voltaire, a celestial troup, for which earlier times prepared is birth, was given to us by nature in order to revivify future races with the fires of their immortal genius. O great men, what does not appreciative humanity owe to you! One, in his dramatic masterpieces, gave lessons of wisdom and profound politics. The other destroyed the bad taste of the concetti,

Plume, labeur, la langue et le devoirFurent vaincus par l’amant de l’aimée. O gentille âme ! Étant tant estimée,Qui te pourri louer qu’en se taisant ? Car la parole est toujours répriméeQuand le sujet surmonte le disant.

(TN): In but little space, you can see That which includes much through its renown; Pen, labor, tongue and duty Were vanquished by the lover of the beloved. O gentle soul! Being so esteemed, Who can praise you except by falling silent? For the word is always repressed When the subject is beyond the saying.

16 TN: Isaac de Benserade, 1613-1691, French poet.

rendered ancient philosophy more amiable, and in his amusingdialogues, promenade men for the first time on the stars which dominate our globe. The next, nervous satirist and correct poet, crushed, with a single verse, the superannuated ignorance which still wished to resist him. That one, sublime in his candor, mixed with the milk of wet-nurses the morality of childhood and of all men. This other,melodious swan of enchanting prose, traced the virtues of the ancient heroes, which in vain he offered as an example to his prince. This other, endowed by nature with all the poetic charms, was born to be the despair of poets to come, and the consolation of all sensitive hearts. Finally, Molière, putting into action all of morality in his immortalcomedies, much more surely chastises mores, since he makes us laugh at our own absurdities. It is there that each one, only seeing only is neighbor, laughs the next day at the defect that he had contracted the day before. All, then, like the springtime sun, break the ice of ignorance, which dissolves in the luminous rays of their learned knowledge; all bring, with grand strides, the fair season of the sciences and the arts, as desirable, as sighed after by well-born men as the fine primavera of the Italians, or the fine spring of all the nations. And the wink of a king was sufficient to call so many great men to their high destinies! And this monarch was more pompous than a lover ofthe fine arts! In this case, man has need of only very little protection in order to take his flight; if he is seconded in his favorite passion, in his amour-propre, he dares to undertake everything, and often succeeds. Yes, everything is possible for man, always as strong in amour-propre as in bold conceptions; if he does not carry out everything which is in the reach of his being, it is becausewe do not how to employ the stimulants that would make him act. His life which is everything for him – he gives it for an instant of glory. “Does the king see us?” cry to each other the soldiers of this same king, already raised by subterranean lightning, ready to fall back into dust. “Does the King see us?” said the modest la Fontaine and the proud

Despreaux17 as well; and they produced prodigies.

I am far from believing, however, that emulation could be lacking for the French having become republicans; on the contrary, we should be sure that no man will arrive in the future at eminent positions without being endowed with distinguished talents. Once in place, these men will love their peers; they will encourage them, will reward them, andwill show them to the sovereign people as worthy to succeed them. Is it the man without talent, the idiot from a villagedistrict, that we will choose to be the representative of one’s commune? No. The citizens would fear, rightly, that wewould judge them according to this formless sample. When onesends one’s portrait or one’s representative, one prefers him to be flattered rather than degraded. The representatives will thus be chosen by the public conscience, which is only mistaken in being precipitate; they will be esteemed for their talents, respected for theirprobity; they will no longer say “does the King see us?” but“does France see us?”. Yes, we will answer them; France, allof Europe sees you and takes you as models. Contemplate thisspectacle, and compare it, if you dare, this great motive for emulation, with the limited eye of a king, whatever it might be.

The reign of Louis XV preserved the appearance, and some manners, of the ancient court, but everyone sensed imitation and usury. Such is the fate of factitious things; a sort of vertigo, the attraction of novelty, put them into fashion, sustain them for some time, but they perish with their heroes, or are no more, after them, than feeble copies. It was not the same for the arts and sciences: the masterworks of the great men, the imprint of their creative genius, had already put down roots too strong for one reign to see them reborn and perish once more. The fate of fine production which have truth as their basis is to be consolidate over time; that of frivolities is to be lost, 17 TN: Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636-1711), French poet and critic.

like the light furrows which cover the surface of the waters.

In comparing the manner of being of Louis XIV, with that of his successor, one would find some rather singular similarities. One, through the exalted sentiments of the chivalry that had preceded him, had noble and chivalrous manners; the other, seeing this sort of religion always being ridiculed, by philosophy being reborn, and by some esteemed writers of novels, was only the timid squire of hispredecessor. One had an imposing look, had the mania of making anyone who dared look at him lower his gaze; the other did the same, but while trembling. One ordered pompous spectacles, where, like Jupin, he presided in all his glory; the other listened to opera and comedies as well,but while yawning. One called artists to him in order to encourage them, to reward them and even to occupy himself with their works; the other made them come as well; myself, I received the order to be present at his passage; having gone there, despite the malady which kept me in bed, he looked at me, and said, quite loudly, that I did not look well. Is it not agreeable to bow and depart after such a compliment? One and the other spoke ceaselessly of the deaththat they feared. One renounced the project, already halted,of building a palace at St. Germain, because from that height he could see the towers of St. Denis, where they would bury the kings: the other asked, each day, his oldest courtiers regarding the place of their burial; they answeredhim one day: At the feet of your majesty, but he did not correct himself. The one, more decisive, always displayed his discontent to those he was going to punish; the other overwhelmed them with caresses, and in leaving his apartments, they were halted by him. It was thought that it was perfidy; no, it was timidity and condescendence by his ministers; and he often said “They want it, and I am not at all of their opinion.” The first had the sense of his power; he thought that he was everything in France, and that that everything was done for him: the second was two men at the same time, private individual, and king. He was not happy in his

interior, because he there abnegated royalty; there, he abandoned himself to his habits; there, he had his own treasure, and he said, in very good faith: “This does not belong to the king, it is mine.” Always weak, vacillating, sometimes high, sometimes low, according to the minister whogoverned in his place, it is thus that Louis XV passed the last complete reign of the kings of France, enveloped bythe clouds where the revolutionary lightning was already grumbling that would soon cast down his race.

However, France is maintained by his past influence; stronger through what it was than through what it is now, the shadow of Louis, called the Great, sustains it. The artistsstill reside in the Louvre, and preserve the unworthy patents of valets of the chamber of the king, which they hadnot blushed to accept under Louis XIV. Louis XV still bears the title of protector of the French Academy; does he protect it, and hate the scholars? One does not know. Punished, if they censor abuses; reward, if they composer some verses forthe favorite: Voltaire jumps from the Bastille on the rump of fermier général. Marmontel; for having said hard truths to a gentleman of the chamber, that is to say, the supreme intendant of the small pleasure, is led from the academy to the same fortress. Beaumarchais spent time there as well, forhaving spoken and written too freely regarding men in positions 18. Diderot, d’Alembert, undertake the greatest workof literature ever seen, and which Greece and Rome did not dare to envisage: the Encyclopedia of all human knowledge. They underwent captivity and a thousand unpleasant things; athousand contradiction on the part of the court; nevertheless, they completed this great work, encouraged by Voltaire, jealous to contribute in honoring his century with this vast production. One sees then Jean-Jacques Rousseau chasedfrom France by the parliaments, and soon protected, returned, and lodged in Paris with a prince of the blood19. This philosopher, as nervous as he was sensitive, everywhere

18 (G): In the days of puns, Beaumarchais, that intrepid man, used to say: “They call us authors, this is not right word; they should say “darers”. 19 (G): The prince de Conti.

seeing man oppressed by despotism, dares to tear the veil which covers the rights of man. He says to the subjugated slave: know how to die, and you know everything. He casts an apple of discord (and one would say that he did it purposely to animate the scholars); he casts an apple of discord while saying, with his accustomed eloquence, that education has precipitated man into the abyss of all the vices. Immediately a thousand voices are raised, a thousand pens active in order to repulse this anathema, and general education is completed while pleading his cause. Jean -Jacques had some reasons for saying that partial education is only an aristocracy of scholars; they can abuse the ignorance of other men: this is what the priests of antiquity did, the monks, and above all the Jesuits of modern times, who wanted to seize thrones. But the true savants, the lay savants have never had an ambition for crowns; that of Apollo, the green laurel adorns their venerable heads with more majesty. One does not know studious men, lovers of nature, well, if one supposes them to be altered by the thirst to reign; they want, much more than being kings, they much prefer to speak as teachers to men who cover a round space of a hundred leagues in diameter; they want to trace the duties for all the men of the land in order to lead them to happiness. This work whichconcerns me, they say, will pass over the immensity of the centuries to come! What do they need after this noble emulation? Fruits, dairy, a residence in the countryside, simple, like their needs. They are happy with the idea of the future: it is man’s mania to hope, to work for tomorrow,never for today. What grander satisfaction! What complement of felicity for he who, in his tomorrow, sees a thousand years of immortality!

In living with the people of letters whom I have just cited, but as a young man who did not dare to mix his timid voice with that of the Nestors of literature, I had a presentiment, I dare to say it, of a terrible revolution, first in ideas, then in public opinion; after which, I said to myself, a spark will suffice to cause a general

conflagration. But, good God, how far we were from foreseeing the crimes, the horrors that a revolution would bring! If these wise, but sensitive men had foreseen these, their genius, frozen with fright, would perhaps have regarded pusillanimous ignorance as the safe port of fettered amour-propre.

These philosophers, these savants of every kind, although rather divided from each other by the objects of pre-eminence and amour-propre, only made up a single philanthropic mass always in agreement, always united, once it was a question of the public good. Each one had their eyes open regarding the work of others; each one noted the subject dealt with by one of them; what other matter remained to be discussed in order to complete the moral code; and, without jealousy, they would applaud each other mutually while seeing the general edifice of society approach its perfection. Some men who wrote little, but who spoke well, gave, so to speak, the theme to others, who, like Jean-Jacques, Helvetius, Raynal, spoke little, but received strong impression that they eloquently reproduced in their works. Turn by turn they discoursed regarding the uselessness of monks, of the fall of the Jesuits chased out of Portugal and France; they remarked with how much prudenceand skill Spain had just expelled them. Yes, they said coldly, the art of chasing out the Jesuits is being perfected more and more each day20. At other times they spoke of the morgue of the parliaments: “Let it be done”, said one of them, “the king will be annoyed, will punish them; they will have recourse with the people, which each day is more enlightened, they will be animated against the king; and the people, once it is risen, will no longer know king or parliaments; it will level everything.” “But”, said another, “do you think about the two or three hundred thousand bayonets at the court’s disposal?” – “The soldier”,they reply, “is the son of the people before being child of the State; he will be of the party of his father.” Was this

20 (G): The noble hope of immortality prevented the savants of this century frombeing more dangerous than the Jesuits.

not a presentiment, abbreviated, of the revolution which hasjust taken place before our eyes?” At another time one spokeof the poor management of the hospitals. One saw at the Hotel-Dieu four men in the same bed: two sick, one moribund,and one who had been dead for several hours. One said how much the people had to suffer from the four great taxes, those of salt, tobacco, drinks, and entrée21.

Yes, I am persuaded that education prepared the revolution, baleful for the good of the world, but favorablefor all men in general. The savants of the century of Louis XIV inspired the love of the sciences in France, where they had not yet flourished; it was a new land for them; the kinglove them, or loved to shine through them; here is why so many great men appeared at once.

The savants who survived Louis XIV, and those who took flight during the reign of Louis XV, brought more light to the philosophical subjects which had already been perceived:a spirit of analysis, a resume of each thing, of the translations of the best authors, freed from ancient prejudices. Voltaire, casting a vast look over human

21 (G): With regard to salt, I allowed myself, one day, to tell them what I had just seen in lower Normandy, today the department of La Manche, at the house of the Abbé Lemonnier, where I had just spent several months. Often, I told them, your confrere, the Abbé Lemonnier, would take his rifle to shoot some birds, as we walked on the shore of the river. One day when we had left the boundaries of his parish, he said to me: “Here is a poor woman who is returning with her jug of salt water that she went to take from the sea. She will return there again, and in a few days she will be surprised by the clerks of the salt tax; they willtake her bed in order to pay the fine for which she will be indicted; I will frighten her, so that this unhappiness does not take place. In a vest, gaiters, a bonnet under his hat, his rifle on his shoulder, he looked like a revenue agent. We made some detours in order to cut off this woman who was fleeing at our approach; we finally reached her: “What have you done, miserable woman”, said the abbé, taking her jug. “You will pay the fine immediately. – Ah, monsieur, said this poor woman, throwing herself to her knees, have pity on me and my misery! I never come to get water; but my poor Jacques is sick with the fever, he needs some bouillon, and I came to take a little of this salt water sothat he will have a little appetite. “In good time; get up”, said the abbé, “I pardon you this time; but do not come back again. Here, take something to buy some salt and some victuals: tell your Jacques not to lose heart. The devil,” he said, giving her back her jug, “we should have left you at it, you would not leave a drop!”

productions, writes eighty volumes in the most amiable style, and gives everyone the desire to read and to be educated. The Spirit of the Laws brings Montesquieu to the rank of the leading legislator philosophers; J. J. Rousseau crosses the immensity of past centuries in order to show us man in the cradle of society; then, returning him little by little to us, he makes us see the false routes that he took in this painful and long journey. Buffon - from man to insect, from the insensitive plant to the even more insensitive pebble, from the entrails of the earth to the resplendent stars - Buffon follows the same route as Jean-Jacques, in tracing the natural history of all beings22. Finally, the Encyclopedia appeared, in order to put the difficulties of physics, philosophy, morality, of all the arts and professions within the reach of all men, and in a single frame. Here is where general education was toward theend of the reign of Louis XV, at the time of my arrival in Paris. With regard to finance, which have much influence as well on the existence, or the more or less precipitate fall of empires, they were far from being in good order. The noble clergy took a third of the revenues of the State; but the common clergy, such as the curates and their assistants,were only ever a minimal portion. The second third of the revenues went to the nobility, to the general tax administrators, and the directors of provinces; regarding which, nevertheless, one must deduct the support of the armies and other expenses which they consider to be indispensable. The final third was for the favorites of the court. After ten or fifteen years, each family that had beenfavored retired with four, six, or eight hundred thousand livres of income. Each noble or financial family had a controller general in petto, that it pushed into this place in order to be enriched with him. On changed controller generalevery six months; once he was no longer bringing in money, this was the sign of his fall; another would succeed him, hewould pressure some other object of finance, and was sent

22 (G): Buffon had begun the Histoire Naturelle before Rousseau had written; but hecontinued it after the publication of the works of Rousseau; and Lacépède, exact, eloquent, and sensitive, is completing this vast picture of the universe.

away in order to make room for yet another. This was the state of finances. With respect to mores, they were entirelyfactitious. The king imitated nothing; a noble laissé-aller was his royal allure; the princes imitated the king; the great lords imitated the princes; the petty lords imitated the great ones; the magistrates imitated the great and the pettylords, depending on their more or less eminent places; the lawyers, the notaries, the prosecutors, even the bailiffs wore the magistrates’ wigs; the low clergy imitated the bishops in their saintly gravity; the artists took the lighttone of the amateurs, and blushed at being professionals of an art with which they honor themselves today. Let us distinguish, however, the great artists; their genius has always advised us that only God, nature and the virtues wereabove talents. The artisans, especially those who, by their estate, approached the persons for whom they worked, such asshoemakers, wig-makers, merchants of fashions, always had some few of them who were much in vogue; nothing was so ridiculous as these heavily light begins, who also took the tone of the court while emitting the most comic pat-à-qu’est-ce23. However, in the midst of all these frivolities, of all this foolishness, which made everyone think that he was above his estate, amour-propre was satisfied; the courtiers laughed endlessly in order to please the royal family, and perhaps to conceal from the family its future disasters; onelaughed at the court, one laughed in the city to the very last boutique. Mad or not, if only we had laughed another thousand years more, someone will say! Yes, certainly: but can one flee one’s destiny? Everyone read, that was bon ton;everyone was educated; everyone blushed in secret at the puerility of his manners and his mores. Once opinion has changed, it cost nothing to the French to fly where reason calls; his natural activity, his lightness, his impatience, 23 (G): After the revolution, all people of talent called themselves artists. Inviewing a shoemaker as a man useful to society as much as a sculptor, but one assuredly being superior to the other through the difficult and the deep knowledge that he must acquire, is it not fitting to denominate them as follows:philosopher, savant, man of letters, for the different kinds of literature; artists, those whose work survives after the man; people of talent, those who perform in the arts and who leave nothing after them; artisans, those who make the tools, the utensils, who work with costumes, who make fabrics or furniture?

his inconstancy, the ennui of eighteen centuries of abuse, all has determined him to change his government with his mores. The revolution – I am not saying the revolutionary horrors – were thus inevitable, and the rebels contributed as much to make it occur as those who cherished it.

Pretty women determine the character of the nation; they are never bored, since they are ceaselessly innovating;they dwell on nothing. If, in the amiable arts, such as poetry and music, too much science destroys their pleasure, they cease to admire them. If pretty women, if even the women courtiers of bon ton, say: It is beautiful, according to what they say, but I found it tedious; the production may have a succès d’estime, but not a smashing one. Yes, education among men, the lightness of women, their coquetry, their penchant for spending, and above all their dominion over us, brought the revolution which leveled all estates. Does one believe, moreover, that the noble families were united under the ancien régime? No. There were various sorts of nobility, who all were exceedingly jealous of two or three families favored by the court. Further, the most ancient nobility wanted to dominate, through its manners, that which was lessancient; and from one to the next, this ridiculous pretention only stopped at the most distinct commoner. What I am going to say will give an idea of what I am suggesting.At court, in the city, superior title, a ribbon of a different color sufficiently marked rank or favor. With an affected motion of the head, with a bow that was greater or smaller, one could guess everyone’s pretentions, and one hadlittle perception of self when one was assaulted by pretentions. But when one finds oneself in the country onceagain, when one must spend several months together, equalityis reborn, the pure air that one breathers dissipates the ambitious vapors of the court and the city; no one wants to descend, and everyone pushes his neighbor downwards. There thus results a conflict between ambitions, a metaphysics of etiquette that one cannot describe. I made a trip to the waters in Forges24; Forges ????; I was lodged at the 24 TN: Forges-les-Eaux in the Seine-Maritime department in Normandy.

residence of the Duchesse de la Rochefòucault, who deserved in every way that which forty other noble families, of all ages, disdained to grant to her. Every one lived by himself;when one met at the fountains, there were affected bows, simpering airs, that would inspire pity. I did my share; in order to save them all, and myself as well, from the ennui of etiquette, I asked the Duchess if she would permit me to invite to her residence twenty or thirty people to hear an opera that I had in my head, and which was not yet at the theater (this was, I think, Le Tableau Parlant25). The Duchess was enchanted by my stratagem. All the ladies accepted, the men followed them; I sang by myself at the piano, one dined,after which I started gambling for small stakes; everyone embraced each other to get their pledges back; at midnight one separated, with the promise of going, the next day, to diner another more or less noble lady. The rest of the season was delicious, and I regarded such a touching, such anatural meeting among persons made to love each other, amongall that there was among the most amiable in France in both sexes, as a miracle of my art.

Louis XVI could not, thus, resist the situation of thingsand spirits which was as we have just described. Even the most famous of monarchs appearing once more in France at this moment could not have imposed any further on a people who were rid of their prejudices. Alexander would have failed, one would have seen him as an audacious vandal, a political Gargantua. Louis XIV would have only seemed like a resuscitated knight of the round table; the pomp of his court would have had the effect of an operation decoration; Frederick would have found soldiers educated enough to say to him: We want for all, that which you want for one alone. And Louis XVI, simple and as credulous as a minister, as proud courtiers, was endlessly reanimated when one showed him the ghost of Louis XIV, and, more vaporous yet, that of Louis XV; Louis XVI, who let his court reign, while scarcely bearing the weight of his crown; Louis XVI finally, what could he do; what should he have done? That which is impossible for a 25 TN: Premiered 1769.

weak man. Seeing that the notables of all France, invited byhim to come to his court, refused, after several seatings, to cut the Gordian knot which the parliaments tied more and more, in refusing to approve new taxes26; having made the decision to convoke the estates general, rather than speaking as a master; seeing that the irritated people had exploded the Bastille upon the approaches of his troops; seeing his troops themselves, especially the French guards, line up on the side of the people; seeing, finally, that thedeputies formed rather an assembly of philosophers than of friends of the king; Louis XVI had to surrender to the constituent assembly; he had to say “Never should you think that I could pass from the monarchic trune that you are offering me; all the reverses, all the revolutionary movements will be attributed to me; each day you will think me a traitor, and I am naught but an honest and feeble who will betray those surround me. I give you my son, unable, duto his age, to compare the past and present to the future; raise him yourselves according to your new laws; if he should have faults, they will be yours. I ask that my spousebe returned to Vienna with my family; I ask in France for a cottage surrounded by walls: I will live there alone until the general peace.” Under what pretext would one have refused this king, whose bonhomie one esteemed, who avowed his weakness? But the king could not take this vigorous decision; he was but a royal plant who vegetated in the midst of his court. Having been the leading king on earth, having been raised to be this, it was more than impossible for him to say: People of France, whom I called my people, you are right and you are master. My predecessors and myselfwere wrong for more than a thousand years to believe that you were our subjects. If the virtuous Malesherbes, the virtous Necker, had been able to take charge of the person

26 (G): One of the notables, the prince of Beauveau, an estimable and educated man, proposed to have the debt of the State paid by all the riches of the kingdom; seeing his proposal meet with a poor reception, he said: You want the estates general, then? Well, instead of a part of your fortunes, you will lose them all, along with your titles, your decorations, and perhaps your lives.

of the king and of his will; if they had committed him to this process, the court, the allied powers, would have said that Louis was a coward, and the events show that he had beenas wise as he was prudent.

One has asked a hundred times under what evidence the king was accused by being the enemy of the revolution: he, who swore at every moment to remain faithful to it. ---Underwhat evidence? One only needed to be a resident of Paris in order to judge the feelings of those who surrounded him. Theproverb which says: like master like valet – has it ever lied? Well, from the lowest kitchen worker in the court to the leading valet; from the pettiest lord to the greatest, all betray, all immolate their master while thinking they serve him. If the nation obtained some success in its armies, spite, rage were painted on their faces; and the most indiscreet joy shone in their eyes, in their speeches, if some reverses announced that French blood had been spilled. The politics of the courts, used to deceiving the people, certainly wanted to continue its allure; but can one deceivean entire nation boiling with the delirium of its liberty which it has just won, and which the growing prosperity of America animates even more? No, this is impossible.

The constituent assembly had taken a middle path in preserving a constitutional king, still too powerful in the eyes of the nation; the friends of king were not content with his share; and could they be? The nobles lost their nobility, the priests saw themselves reduced to the apostolic wallet: their rage was extreme. Then France metamorphosed into clubs, into popular societies, in to revolutionary Jacobins who failed, in the impetuous ardor, to overturn the empire by toppling the throne. The King wanted to flee then; would God that he had succeeded in escaping; except for the fanatical Jacobins, France would have regard as a blessing an escape that saved the life of an unhappy king who had been rendered guilty by his weakness.

It is here that it would be necessary to trace the tortuous march of the revolution; it is here that it takes on a frightening character. A thousand pens will try to reveal to the centuries to come the efforts of the parties, all acting and thinking in an opposite direction. One will read a hundred histories of the French Revolution, all different one from another, and it will be only after us that one will be able to separate out a thousand accessory or false facts, which finally allow pure truth to shine out.Each event struck us with such force, that it is impossible to attenuate it in order to combine it with the one that followed it. We are only seeing, thus, the twilight of the living light which will someday be spread over the inextricable labyrinth of the greatest revolution which has taken place among men. The causes are indubitable, I have related them in part; we perceive the effects: they are terrible for those who, like us, were witnesses or victims! A spontaneous impulse causes twenty-five million men to move, each one in his own direction; no one has the tactics for what is taking place, nor of what is going to happen; since everything is new for us. Each man, according to his party or his own judgement, wants to make use of the resources of this great machine. Such and such a resource has done everything, someone tells you; no, says the other, this resource is null: chance, the outcome of events have guided and determined everything. What constitutes our happiness in the eyes of some, is regarded, by others, as that which will cast us down. But while one argues about thecauses, the effects, and their reactions, the revolution continues. It will be sustained because it pleases and flatters the amour-propre of the small, the poor, and the medium-rich, who are the greatest number. When they see a has-been despoiled of his privileges, they think it just that each one should have his turn. We note very well, further, that the enemies, those indifferent to the revolution begin to love it one they are in position and once they have their fortune from it. We know that affected discontent of the new rich, whom we call the men of the new France, or mushrooms is only a game in order to hide their

turpitude and their rapine. Had you been lackeys, we know,in general, that taking a little malcontent air, means to say: I miss my nobility; but, once more, everyone becomes weary, forgets his errors and opinions, the constitution is respected by force and through opinion27; it is thus that inthe midst of the roaring waves, the vessel of alliance arrives majestically at our shores, and will, in a short time, there case the formidable anchor that now human force will be able to shake.

It is not the detailed history, but the true picture ofthese stormy times that I will sketch under the title of that which we are. It is in fact during the reign of terror,in the period when I had beneath my eyes, under my window, the frightening models of this terrible picture, that I wrote what follows: and in order to follow the ordinary march of the human spirit, which, in all the situations in which it finds itself, likes to know whence it comes and where it will go, I have thought to need to precede my work with an introduction where I succinctly present what we were and what we are; these two propositions led me naturally to athird division, which is the work itself, under the title ofwhat we ought to be. However, one can read with confidence the painting which the following section retraces. It is only a rough outline, I know, but often a finished and perfected picture is farther from the truth than a sketch made with broad strokes. In one, the abundance of materials, the immense circle that must be traversed, the care for omittingno detail, no opinion, often leads to indecision. In the other, all the naked facts are approached without makeup, without disguise; they are less insinuating, but they make more of an impact; one is a story that one reads and meditates upon, the other that which one recounts after having read it. Finally, I have said already, the third proposition of this work is the only one that is interestingfor mores, the only one that belongs to me, and for which I am proud to have had the idea:it is the moral goal to which the first two parts have served as a path; just as the past 27 (G): 22 prairial, year 5 (June 10, 1797).

and the present will have prepared the regeneration of the man of the future for whom we can already senses a fine destiny.

WHAT WE ARE

On the various periods of the Revolution28

The royal prerogatives that the constitution of 1790 granted to Louis XVI should have been of inestimable worth forhim. These majestic diplomas conferred by a great people increased his power in giving a real validity to his titles.But the rapidity with which events took place left no separation between the monarchic and constitutional thrones;in the eyes of the nobles and of the priests, this was a fall for Louis XVI, and not a translation from one throne to the other; and, as I have already said, could they have any other view of a revolution which despoiled them of all theirpower? Indignant, then, through the appearance of the abasement of the king, while in reality it was their personal degradation that affected them, they emigrated to neighboring kings, and showed them France stirred up by a few bad philosophical heads; they told them that the people,repenting of its excesses, was ready to return to order, andto reconstruct the bastilles that they had scarcely knocked down. These kings, already frightened for themselves by the progress of our revolution, armed themselves against us. Then a stronger and almost general emigration took place among the former nobility; the nobility ran from Paris to Coblentz, as from a promenade to the spectacle; the young people of this party, an amiable and frivolous youth which is amused by everything, even the most terrible events, made

28 (G): To follow the plan which we have proposed, it is necessary for us to survey here, very succinctly, the principal periods of a revolution which was sobaleful to so many people. It is difficult for me to put once again before the eyes of sensitive souls pictures which they only seek to remove from their imagination; but, being as educated as we are regarding these subjects, for themthere will be no lacuna in suppressing that which following, and moving immediately to the work itself.

themselves a game from emigration, and pleasantly proposed to the coachmen of our squares to take them to Coblentz, where their meeting place was. The assembly of the people decreed that the gold of the emigrés would serve to combat them and to vanquish them; all their goods were confiscated for the use of the nation. This act of rigor inflamed them more and more to return victorious to their homes, in order to regain their fortune and their nobility; the emigrés, at the head of the enemy armies, would have willingly massacredall of the commoners, that is to say nineteen/twentieths of the nation.

The hostilities begin; our general headquarters is made up of royalist nobles, our old soldiers are patriots; what contradictions! What conflict between command and obedience!The first combats were baleful for us……

Let us stop for a moment, and see at what period of the revolution we have arrived.

The notables, summoned by the king, went to Versailles, but they refused to mix in such grand national interests. The estates-general were convoked for the first day of May of 1789; but, instead of restoring the ancient edifice whichwas crumbling on all sides, they built anew; they recognizedthe people as sovereign, forming itself a legislative assembly. They made a constitutional king, powerful the golddirected to him, through the pomp with which he was surrounded, and through the veto that he could exercise overlaws other than those included in the constitution. The nobles, seeing in this constitution the tomb of their privileges and the annihilation of their hopes, gathered around the king. Led astray by their advices, he wanted to flee. The people stop him at Varennes, and return him to Paris. A lukewarm silence reigns everywhere regarding his passage, and he is refused any external mark of respect. From this moment the feelings of love that the French alwayshad for their king are gone; Louis XVI is placed under arrest in the Palace of the Tuileries until the acceptance of the

constitution. He accepts it. This period concludes the labors of the constituent assembly, and that known as the legislative assembly succeeds it. It is then, as we have said, that the emigration of the nobles doubles; it is then that the kings declare war on us; it is then, that through athousand treasons, we are threatened on every side; it is then that the people go to the Tuileries29. The King does not disdain to cover his head with the red cap, he drinks from the bottle of the collier; the people says to him: Love us, do not deceive us. This weak prince, always vacillating between his party which is pressing him, and the people whomhe would like to serve, answers: Yes, my children, I love you, and his court shivers with rage. Is this demarche by the people his work? I think so. It is, I think, the final effort, it is the crisis of a people which has been adoring its kings for more than a thousand years; today it suspects him of being in league with its enemies, it comes to testify to itsfears. The people arrives, it is true, armed with pikes and cannons: this procession is menacing; but it caresses, it respects its king, while throwing enraged glances at all those who surround him; it seems to say to them: “It is you that these weapons threaten if you continue to deceive him whom we still love.” Here is how, at the time, I explained this popular movement, which decided the fate of royalty in France. Others would have it that the French people, weariedby the excesses of the court, desired and prepared the republic from that moment on; and that this armed appearancebefore the king was a coup mounted so that the partisans of the court would arm themselves against the people. In fact, a little time later, the nobles assembled with the king; armed with daggers, they swear to be faithful to him; the people takes umbrage, and suspects the sentiments of the King. The momentary successes of the outside enemies, the joy that they cause for the enemies within, confirm their suspicions, and legitimate their fears. Frightened by the ills that menace them, it hastens to prevent them; it goes in fury on August 1, 1792 to the Tuileries, the palace of the King is besieged; his bodyguard, his Swiss guards, his 29 (G): June 20, 1792.

friends are in part defeated during this combat; the king takes refuge in the assembly of the people, and from there is led to the temple, from which he only leaves in order to go to the scaffold. This terrible day of August 10 was a vengeance that court had been fearing for a long time. How, in fact, could it hope to contain the people of Paris, whilefavoring victorious enemies who every day threatened to invade France? Since the beginning of the revolution (one has constantly observed this), all the assemblies, all the bravados of the anti-popular party, all the betrayals of thearmies, all the successes of our enemies, have always be thesignal of some internal disasters, where this same party hassuccumbed. Why, then, is it ceaselessly regaining enthusiasm? Why does it not feel the inutility of its reiterated efforts? Because nothing, except time which destroys everything, can calm the amour-propre of the humiliated man. He who passes half of his life in a privileged class never consents to leave it; he must be pushed in order to change places. A revolution is not a consensual arrangement between the parties; it is a strugglewhere the weak is annihilated. In the revolution of seasons,we know in advance which power will triumph: it is the strongest, that which has the right to reign, that which, finally, marches with nature. Although bees are subject to asingle head, to a queen; although their government is monarchical, each hive undergoes a revolution every summer; the newborn encumber the space – either the young or the oldmust go. But the old bugs are more robust than the young ones; moreover, they assert their more ancient right of possession; after a few days of tumult, the young chief sounds his trumpet, quits the hive, and the young swarm follows him. If there are various chiefs, there are the samenumber of swarms that are formed to follow them; a chief without a swarm is like an unthroned king; if he does not take flight he is dead. It is, likewise, the superabundance of individuals, or the force of new opinions, which causes revolutions among men. Everyone runs after ease, ease leads to voluptuousness; this multiplies children who soon commandus through their number and activity. The tastes of children

are rarely those of their parents; old furniture, old tapestries shock their eyes; they love to harmonize that which surrounds them with their new sensations. In the houseof his father, the child wants to build himself a little house of stone, of earth, of wood, at least a chateau of cards; this penchant for reforming the former habitation of his parents is natural to our descendants. In an advanced age, it is the same for political institutions, they inclineto changing them, unless a careful education, with constant laws, represses the restless instinct of adolescence and of the man in his first vigor.

However, after having mown down our old soldiers, the enemy enters France; already the powers, from their offices are dividing up our provinces; a proud manifesto, signed Brunswick, is sent to us; they dare to promise us the protection of the kings, if, without resistance, we receive their triumphant soldiers in our walls; if we respectfully kiss the blades that they bring to us.

In a frightful dream, I hear these mercenary troops crossing the boulevard; the sound of their trumpet had something sinister about it; a cold sweat drenched me in my bed as I heard these bellicose sounds; I run to my window, amenacing cavalry, sabre naked, with arrogant look, says to me: you are a slave! Never was bird in the wood more confounded than me at the sight of carnivorous eagles hovingabove their standards. I lift my eyes to the windows which surround me, I see pale citizens, regarding this sad spectacle with mournful eye; I see women weeping, half-nude behind their curtains, hiding their palpitating bosoms. I was oppressed by this dream, an enormous weight weighed on my chest, when I cried out with effort: O God! Are there no more friends of liberty? I was woken by my own cries….O happiness! Our shame is not consummated; our ills can still be remediated!

The nation, in fact, takes courage, it sees that it must vanquish or die. Die! When we still have millions of

men who will fight to break their chains! One enrolls them on all sides; thousands of volunteers take part; one announces that the enemy is marching on Paris; its residentshastily dig trenches in their neighborhoods, and make themselves ready to take up arms; the royalist party triumphs and cannot hide its joy; imprudent joy! Men of the blood are taken to prisons, where the suspects are held, allare slaughtered, pell-mell, the virtuous, innocent, or guilty. The octogenarian magistrate, the minister of the altar with white hair, appeal in vain to these monsters of carnage – nothing stops them. September 2, a frightful day! True patriots in vain, through their tears, wish to efface you from the annals of the revolution! A thousand popular societies cover France and correspond with the Jacobins in Paris; one demands, from all parts of the empire, that the King be judged; that France, betrayed by its king, become a vast republic. At these universal cries, the legislative assembly is dissolved, and national convention convoked, which alone has the right to make these great changes in theconstitution of the State. The people names its deputies, soon the convention gathers, and decrees, in its first sessions, the republic and the abolition of the royalty. Thearmed enemies tremble with rage, and once more threaten Paris. Instantly all the cities are changed into workshops, the noise of anvil pieces the air; the cannon, the rifle, the bayonet, yet more dreadful in the hand of the French, all the offensive weapons are forged, only the shield is forgotten. Soon more than a million combatants appear, of which the most aged is twenty-five. Are they educated in theart of war? No. Ah! What does a learned tactic matter when one is fighting for one’s country!

It is said that that numerous colonies of ants sometimes lay siege to settlements in America; as soon as the menaced owner is informed of their march, he hurriedly arranges a circle of bundles of wood that he lights in orderto change the direction of the enemy troop; but nothing stops it, it is with its blood that it extinguishes the fires, it is on the ash of thousands of cadavers that an

army of ants continues its conquest. Thus did the young French republicans, without tactics, without experience, pass by the ranks of the enemy battalions. In vain do they oppose to the them the most imposing order; in vain do they take refuge in always impregnable citadels, fortified by a thousand places to fire from: it is in the same way, with their precious blood that they extinguished the devouring fires; it is upon their bodies, torn, or reduced to power, that their triumphant brothers marched. Then the cries of victory resound in public squares and at the spectacles. Each, depending on his party, is affected differently, one judges at the first glance; the first are consternated by the happiness of the others; bullied by the people, the royalist affects a joy that he does not feel, his laugh is agrimace that gives him away. Happy patriot! You moan withoutconstraint, or likewise you sing your triumphs; but the royalist, surrounding by spying eyes, is obliged to concentrate his pains and his pleasures. You live in the element that is fitting for you, he suffers in the element contrary to his nature; what makes you live kills him, that which relieves you will cause his death.

Orléans, at the head of a numerous party, pretending to love the republic because he hates the court wants to make the scaffold where Louis expires a step for arriving at the throne; but soon he will, with his own blood, wash the same scaffold still stained with the blood of Louis.

It was alleged that a party named Girondin wanted to divide the republic into little federative republics; all those who were thought to be connected with this project were led to the scaffold. O irreparable loss! Their blood isshed in a single day; and those who escape the torment languish or perish far from their homes and their families. Illustrious Condorcet30; it is thus that your days ended; you escaped from the arms of friendships, from the arms of a wife31 who risked her life to save yours. How many precious 30 TN: Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis of Condorcet, 1743-1794.31 (G): Madame Vernet.

atoms rose at once into the air! What a venerable cloud mustthe blood shed by these victims have formed! Ah! If nothing is lost in the vast laboratory of nature, what sublime beingwould be reproduced from their reunited emanations!

It is at this period that it was decreed that the republic was one and indivisible32. One accused the Girondins of being egotists, who had only wanted to work for their ownaccount; that may be: they all had spirit; but there were among them some bad spirits; and after men have acquired useful knowledge, one prefers a good man to the best turbulent and disordered spirit. It may also be that the Girondins were in good faith; they might have through, with the author of the spirit of the laws, that a vast republic cannot last long. After the fall of the Roman Republic, thisopinion prevailed among the best authors. But if one considers that at Athens, at Rome, the people deliberated inthe public places; that they there named their senators, their generals, their consuls, their censors….., one will agree that a continual anarchy was inevitable in such governments. France, on the contrary, avoided, prevented anarchy in creating for itself a representative republic; this is not a popular republic, always stormy and destroyingitself through endless recurring convulsions, which make it take each a step toward monarchic or military government; itis, as I have said, a representative republic; it is the people represented by the honest and enlightened men of all estates. Will the preserve the present constitution of year 3? This is what time will teach us. But whatever may be the democratic constitution that France adopts, it will avoid the excesses, the baleful changes for the people and the menin charge. When men in position work for themselves, they always work well. I understand the young man, poor, and filled with emulation, saying to himself: “Today I am named 32 (G): It was ordered, as everyone knows, that one should write on all the houses: Unity, indivisibility of the Republic; liberty, equality, fraternity, or death.

A wit (there are always wits in Paris), whose door and house were very narrow, found the lemma too long, and wrote “Vive la mort!” He was advised, for his own wellbeing, to suppress his witticism.

in the councils; my fortune is made; I will march, step by step, toward the leading positions.” He will make himself worthy of the noble career that he wishes to follow; one will no longer ask who his father was; let him be a man of good, a man of spirit, his fate is assured. Here is how andwhy one can believe the republic to be imperishable, except for reverses that one cannot foresee, caused by invasions ofthe peoples and by the great convulsions of nature which always overturn the earth, men, and all their projects.

Nothing is comparable to the activity, the energy that nation deployed to confront its numerous enemies. Austrias, all the prince of the empire, together or separately, the émigrés, Prussia, Holland menace us on the north. Spain, a second army of the Emperor, Sardinia, Tuscany, the Pope, theKing of Naples, arrive from the south. All at once want to run together over France, while England deploys all its maritime forces on the two seas, and makes a landing in Toulon. One of our departments, the Vendée, made fanatic by the priests, gives us civil war at the same time. These enemies, fiercer than the others, communicate with England and the emigrés; this is the hydra with a hundred heads, always being reborn to the extent that our internal forces subjugate them. This is the coalition, such is the enormous mass that must be pushed back and be vanquished with inexperienced soldiers, with generals, officers who, for themost part, have never made war. Fourteen armies go to face the enemies at every corner of France; it is while singing the Marseillaise that they fly to combat. “Children of the fatherland, say generals to them, who scarcely had been soldiers, no tactics against enemies who have grown old in the labors of Mars; bayonet to the foremost, charge, a flying artillery that follows all their movements and strikes them without ceasing; let your bravery, your intrepidity astound them. Used to strict order, calculating all the points of attack and defense, like skilled chess players, it is showing themselves to be regular, unshakable that they count on defeating you; but strike, reverse this vain symmetry, and you will see them confused and

annihilated.” They obey, and make Europe, consternated with their successes, shake. It is through public feasts, balls, cries of victory, that Paris had to applaud the heroism of this victorious youth; such is the character of the Frenchman, he is but little afflicted, and avidly grasps theoccasions for manifesting his joy. But an atrocious man, devoured by the thirst to command and by his own pride, dominating the convention, by who knows what prestige, haltsthe impulse to joy, and takes his somber spirit to the opposite extreme. Instead of letting wine flow in transportsof inebriation, the blood of some traitors, mixed with that of thousands of innocent victims of both sexes, inundates the scaffolds; followed by some men without mores, without talents, some men, astonished to see themselves at the head of a nation for which they were the scum, want to immortalize themselves by their misdeeds, and freeze with terror the senate and the residents of the vastest empire. It has been said a hundred times that, without the terror which struck internal enemies, our arms would have remained without success. No, the terror did not make our soldiers victorious there outside; what concern did they have with our party quarrels! Animated by the republican spirit, commanded then by generals who were their friends, their equals, their brothers, they wanted from us only bread and iron in order to reverse the coalition armies; and they would have counseled us, now that they were victorious, to scorn the small number of enemies enclosed inside our walls.However, in the interior, all the palaces of the emigrés arechanged into prisons, where the citizen is dragged; all men inferior in talent, in fortune, become denouncers of those whom they had envied for a long time. Nothing halts the hatred of the poor against the rich, of the valets against their masters, of the ignorant against the educated, of the wicked against the good: are you rich? You will die. Were you noble? You will die. Unhappy father, did your son emigrate? You will die with your entire family. Have you ever worked in finance, in the church, in the councils, in the tribunals? Death! Universal death to everyone who has surpassed the common level of the vile and ignored men who

dominate the convention. Talent is a title of proscription, moderation is a crime, indulgence, compassion, are punishable weakness, virtue has no other refuge than the scaffold. Drench your hands in blood, show them steaming with blood to the monsters who govern, then their dreadful smiles welcome you. At the spectacles (for one wants them tobe open), atrocious figures interrupt the action. No monsieur, no maître, no valet, they cry in response to each word that the actor says, and the vaults resound with applause for words of blood, death, vengeance, and carnage. In the streets, one only hears cries of death; each day is marked by new murders; each night, they cry to your ears thelarge list of the victims of the day, and it is in shuddering that you hear the names of your friend, of your girlfriend, of your relative, slaughtered that very day in the public squares; according to the apparatus of the laws. What does the sensitive man become in the midst of these scenes of horror? Alas, I experienced it. Except for victims devoted to the torment that a supernatural courage exalts33, a mournful stupor decomposes all their features, an existence worse than death is the share of all, when natural sensitivity cannot be sufficient for the excess of woes that overwhelm them: this is a dreadful dream, from which the awakening is yet worse.

A no less horrible scene suddenly strikes our eyes; thetemples are despoiled; from neighboring departments they

33 (G): The heroic [illegible](deeds?) of the victims of the revolution will becollected by history: they are innumerable. Since we were the witnesses of theirdevotion to death, it is easy to believe in the holy exaltation of the martyrs. From childhood to old age, and without distinction of sex, a revolutionary feveragitated every head. To so many traits that are already known, let us add this one. A father and his son, the citizens Legrand, both of them my friends, were in the same prison; they are called to the revolutionary tribunal, that is to say, to the scaffold; only one is called, but their names are confused, out of Alexandre they made Alexis, André. That is me, says the father; no, it is me, says the son; during their debate and their embraces of adieu, the gendarmes say: “decide among yourselves, we only need one.” Finally, the son prevails; butthis day was the 9th of Thermidor, soon the Convention puts an end to human massacres; a deputy arrives at the prisons, and showing his decree to the prisoners, says to them (for in France it is always necessary to jest): Here is the glue to save your heads.

bring all their riches; the vilest animals traverse the streets of Paris, laden with the ornaments of the religious service; the holy vessel are in the hands of sacrilegious men who make a game out of profaning them; in seeing this, the honest man recalls his youth, his education, he religions; and the long respect that he has always born for these profaned holy spoils, offers him a frightening contrast. The horrible Robespierre himself was moved by thisprofanation: he thought to fix everything by ordering a feast to the supreme Being at which he presided. Impious! Ina few days you will better know this ineffable Being; your torn members will return, bleeding, to the mud, where Satan,enamored of the charms of your mother, can feast on the baleful germ of your cursed existence. Already, did not a woman, young, beautiful as the messager of the gods, announce the end of your reign? Not being able to penetrate as far as you, she strikes your first henchman, and marches triumphantly to the scaffold, where the young Frenchman, captivated by her beauty, her male courage, direct amorous sighs to her. Beautiful and heroic Corday, a new Judith, youtraverse the revolutionary armies within France in order to strike at one of the monsters who were desolating France! Alas that the blade of your dagger did not immediately plunge….But let us stop; let us seek rather to repress always reprehensible fanaticism, whether it acts for libertyor for religion. Of all the immoral beings, the anarchist iscertainly the most dangerous, unless it be the impious fanatic, who announces a God of peace, with sword and flame in hand.

This bold blow had frightened the terrorists; the nation, pushed to despair, planned from that moment on a general insurrection, when a senator, Tallien34, finally spoke out against the devastating monster. The senate rises as one and pronounces the death sentence for the tyrant. He flees to the common house which welcomes him; Paris is divided; he is execrated on one side, and still feared on 34 TN: Jean-Lambert Tallien (23 January 1767 – 16 November 1820)

the other. Finally, on the 9th of Thermidor, of year 2, a day to be remembered forever, France breathes, and on the 10th, her tyrant is dragged to the scaffold covered with wounds, mud, and opprobrium. Divine justice shines in the smallest details of his torment. This scoundrel and his accomplices, after having been glutted with blood, are entirely covered in blood themselves while climbing up the frightful theater where a sweet death would expiate their innumerable felonies. The day no longer defiled by the glances of these monsters regains its purity, and the blade of the law, for such a long time reddened by virtue, no longer falls but on guilty heads35 .

In its immense labors, the Convention had offered to the sanction of the people a second, entirely democratic constitution, that it had accepted36. The sovereignty of thepeople was so absolutely recognized there that, in each city, in each burg, at each spectacle, a handful of men believed themselves to be the sovereign. In the streets themselves, this drunk, that rude personage, whose insolenceone reproved, would ask you arrogantly, if he was not sovereign; no, the sensible man answered: you are the twenty-four-millionth part of the sovereign people; but between wine and aquavit, a fraction is incomprehensible.37.The Convention, rescued from Robespierre and his acolytes, calmed, inasmuch as it was possible, the terror and the continual reactions that the parties exercised. It made a third constitution, where the sovereignty of the people,

35 (G): The unexpected and rapid change which Robespierre experienced, caused anextraordinary convulsion for the residents of Paris on the 8th of Thermidor. Yesterday, he made the empire tremble; today, everyone wants to rip his heart out. The people flocked to the streets and swears to kill him, only the anarchists seek to defend him; one of these, whom I exhorted, without knowing him, to follow the impulse of the Convention, drew his sword and was going to run me through: Strike, I said while uncovering my chest, you are armed, and I am defenseless; he escaped from the hands of the people which was going to avenge me.36 (G): That of 1793. 37 (G): Everyone in this period was forced to use the familiar form of address [tutoyer]. The most atrocious, the most improper expressions were in the mouth of the people. “Who is the shameless cannibal, the immoral anthropophagist, who has deranged my hat?” said a citizen in his section.

although recognized, had more limited bounds, and by this means the always recurring anarchy. Our armies, directed with more method and care, were prodigies once more, and forced the larger part of our enemies to sue for peace. The grand duke of Tuscany, the king of Naples, conquered Holland, Prussia returned to its true interest, Spain, wearied by a war into which it had been dragged by Pilnitz’scoalition, recognized the uselessness of their efforts, and became the friends of the republic. However, the emperor, abandoned by his principal allies, resists our notable preponderance. Then a young hero, Bonaparte, takes command of the army of Italy, forces Turin to leave the list of our enemies, lays siege to and takes Mantua, advises the Pope totake his feeble army off the field, scarcely suspected by the republicans. The letters written to the Pope by this general are remarkable for the nobility and steadfastness that he is able to ally with the respect due to the father of the church; this is a son speaking respectfully to his father, whose old age has weakened his judgment. The Pope gives into his reasons, and gives us (according to the articles of the peace treaty) a part of the masterworks of art which the ancient Romans had once conquered from the Greeks, and which, after more than two thousand years, become the fruits of our conquests. Soon Bonaparte, this newAlexander, but conquering in order to offer the peoples liberty and not the chains of slavery38, traverses the states of Venice, gives the emperor combat after combat: like feeble doves, he sees the imperial eagles flee before him; he finally stopes under the walls of Vienna, where the vanquished enemy sues for peace. His triumphal course reanimates the ancient courage of the residents of Italy: “Are we not”, they say, “the descendants of Fabius39, of Paulus Emilius, of Scipio?” All, animated by the example of the French, and under the protection of Bonaparte, break their chains, and devote themselves to liberty.

38 (G): He answered someone who seemed to reproach his youth: In another year I will be old, or I will be no more. 39 TN: Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus Cunctator, c. 280 BCE – 203 BCE. 

In this interval, a powerful faction, which one must not judge rigorously, because we cannot know what would the results of hits projects would have been, had they been carried out, inspired some perhaps legitimate fears in the government. It measured, while trembling, the abyss ready toswallow it up, and precipitated into it those same ones who were digging it beneath their steps. The lightning of Fructidor shines, and the immense marshes of Cayenne were astounded to see debark into their bosom the men whose renown had brought to them their glorious names.

After our Italian victories, the treaty of Campo-Formiowas concluded. A congress gathers at Rastadt, but the time passes in vain ceremonies, balls, festivities took place, our ambassadors are assassinated without it being possible to discover the hand responsible, and hope of peace became distant. Bonaparte is no longer in France, he has left for Egypt; while passing through he takes the island of Malta, and debarks as if miraculously for Alexandria. He recalls for these peoples, almost barbarous, that they were the first men in the world; he brings back to them the sciences and the arts, long exiled from these happy climes. France then occupies itself with its triumphs, and forgets its critical position. After having conquered Egypt, Bonaparte returns and finds France in languor, the natural result of its long and deceived hopes; his presence revives everyone’sspirits; supported by the Council of Elders, he changes the form of the government, appeases the parties always ready torise in revolt; he allows the victims of the terror and the parties to see their fatherland once more; in the name of humanity, he demands peace from our enemies, who, little used to this ancient loyalty, avoid his propositions. Nevertheless, the Vendée is pacified once more, America is reconciled with us; all seems to be reborn within France, and the man of genius who never caused his virtue to be suspected, inspires general confidence. However, the republican spirit, more consolidated in France than one could imagine, this always defiant spirit, which, rightly,

believes more in human pride than in good faith, fears for liberty in seeing a single man, still young, invested by public opinion to a point where history, perhaps, cannot show us an example. But let us be reassured: the man of genius who possesses everything in this world, has only one wish to form; he wishes that his name, pure and unstained, should pass into history. What is a century of rule, at the most, followed by eternal execration? The philosophical spirit has changed educated men so much that in the arts, the sciences, the profession of war, and perhaps, soon, in diplomacy, the honor of leaving behind oneself an illustrious name prevails over every other passion.

Surrounded by artists and savants, I see that today they would give their life, they would give it willingly in order to assure for themselves an imperishable glory. And you would fear that the man at the peak of the prosperities of this world could for a moment remove his eyes from the immortal glory that awaits him! No, the reward is too beautiful, the exchange too disproportionate to allow one tobe able to establish a reasonable parallel between these twochances. It is to trust, to hope, as sweet as the influences of spring, that we must open our hearts. Everything promises usa happier future; the winter of our calamities can no longerbe prolonged without withering our existence. Must we then pass our entire life in a state of alarm? No; it is time forthe sun to appear once more, and for it to dissipate the shadows with which we were surrounded.

In recapitulating the horrors which we have just sketched out, they would seem suspect, if the excesses of human pride were not themselves above all comprehension. What tone will history take in order to depict them? What trumpet will renown use in order to publish them? That of the Last Judgment? Will it provide sounds that are lugubrious enough, lamentable enough, formidable enough so that they can be understood everywhere that men are gatheredon the earth? If ever a terrible subject could provide vast

tableaux to Epopea, without contradiction it is the French Revolution, where the virtuous man, lover of liberty, contrasts equally with the slave used to the weight of his chain, and with the men of blood who gave birth to all the crimes.

The Iliad transmitted to us the events of the siege of Troy; the abduction of a woman armed all of Greece against the Trojans; but for us, the rights of man reconquered, humanity avenged against its oppressors, are of a much higher importance. The French Homer will find much more striking and more philosophical scenes in his subject.

What events, what crimes, but what virtues have we seenin the short space that we have seen unfold from 1789, the period when the revolution began until the present! Never did man live so much in so little time, if he calculates thespace for the strong sensations that he has experienced. Never, as well, did a few years flow with more rapidity, if it is true that the present, always pushed by events, and causing us to desire the future, shortens the time which is lost in a long delirium. This terrible tableau is, for thosewho experienced it, a sort of dream that is frightening and consoling at the same time, like that of a father who would see his children perish, and who from their blood will soon see them reborn more flourishing in health, youth and vigor.

What is the cause of an event which will change the morality of the earth?– Man, his ambition to want to elevatehimself above his peers. “It is I, it is I who is the greatest!” say the children in their games when they are little; and having become men, they endlessly repeat this refrain of their first chanson. Politics, spirit, cunning take control of authority and of all the goods of the earth;the less numerous the masters of riches and authority are, the more they possess; but at the same time, the less numerous, the greater is the majority of the ignorant and the poor. Finally, ignorance is educated, rebels, and the ancient possessors are unthroned. If they are subjected in

turn, after having subjected the others, the political stormwould cease more rapidly; but no, the habit of domination that they have acquired; the names of great, of people commeil faut, that they have given themselves, sustain them, and raise them further, in order to make their fall more humiliating. They did not know, these fallen men, how many woes, they were preparing for themselves, through their stubborn resistance! They did not know, these noble emigres,how many woes they were giving themselves in quitting their country! The enemies of France welcomed them at first, because they thought, aided by their rage, to re-establish the ancien régime, and to be paid back with a part of our provinces. Their project not having succeeded, they abandoned the émigrés. Happy those who, with some talents, were able to escape wretchedness! Formerly, in Paris, one laughed with pity when Jean-Jacques Rousseau said, in his Emile, that a man, whatever his estate, should learn a profession; today one sees that he spoke the truth. How many marquises, counts, chevaliers, have become dancing masters, teachers ofviolin or fencing abroad in order to provide themselves withthe basic necessities of life! - But if the émigrés had remained in France, you will say, would their lives, their goods have been safe? Did not the people begin the revolution by burning their chateaux? --- Yes, some chateauxwere pillaged or burned, but this disorder would soon have ended; and if the nobility, through politics, had joined thestronger side, if it had consented to some pecuniary sacrifices, if it had remained in its residences instead of taking up arms against its fatherland, its fate would have been less cruel. --- But would it not have perished under the dreadful reign of terror? ---Without the emigration, there would have been the terror; without the continual opposition of the various parties, the revolutionary shocks would have been bearable; it was the efforts of those in opposition from within and from without that prolonged the revolution. – But how to demand that a once-privileged caste, which is losing its titles and its goods, cry Vive larépublique? One does not demand this, or only in the circumstances where all must bow to the common law. Given

the natural egotism of men, one knows how impossible it is for those who are losing everything to share the sentiments of those who have just acquired everything; but, under all possible governments, the honest man obeys the law that he himself condemns.

When one distances oneself too far from nature, when, in an assembly of men, some say to the majority: “you are scoundrels, and we are gods” sooner or later, a revolution is no more extraordinary than bolts of lightning or the shaking of an earthquakes. There are former nobles who bowedwithout resistances to the efforts of the storm; I know somewho, rejected, banished from the bosom of their families, are indigent today because of their constant love for the republic. Magistrates! Get to know them, protect them, proveto the revolted that you are just; that if all the fallen privileged ones had had the same courage, as well as reason,they would never have ceased to be the children of the State. Get to know also those whom a too well-founded terrorforced to flee their bloodied fatherland. There are still ancient Frenchmen who, like the Malesherbes, the la Rochefoucault, made virtues hereditary in their families, and who, at all times, attracted our respect. Even a Bourbon40, who was the model for every virtue within a vicious court, cannot today cease to be worthy of our admiration, and deserves the protection of the laws of her ancient fatherland.

Everywhere one only hears the complaints of those who have been struck by the new order of things; should not everyone expect numerous sacrifices, since everything was distinction and privileges, which necessarily should pass into the revolutionary crucible? Certain republican egotistsvoluntarily consent that what one called the great should beput at their level; but they would like, further, to retain authority over the petty. No, if you please, you are equal in rights: it is to this condition that the law elevates you. 40 (G): The last duchess of Orléans.

I feel sorry for the minister of altars, who, in his sincere piety, believes that only his manner of religion is agreeable to God, and that there is but one manner of offering incense from mortals to the creator of the universe. I feel heartily sorry for the honest old man, deprived of his fortune which he cannot build up once more. But do they think, then, these victims of the revolution, that we, who are not complaining, have lost nothing in this general upheaval? Almost all the people of the law, the merchants suffered; retired artisans, savants, artists, experienced great losses in their little fortunes. What I had acquired in thirty years of labor is almost entirely gone, and yet I love the political liberty that we owe to the revolution. – But you lost neither your talents, nor the honorific titles that they give you; your amour-propre remains satisfied, and even gains thereby, since in civil society you have become as great as us; to sum up, your comedies are playing, and for us the curtain has fallen. – This is precisely the truth. Our talent was in nature, yourswas factitious, one should have survived the other. ---But really, this republic of about six hundred leagues in circumference, can it exist for a long time? --- We will see. Never was the mass of people educated; it is more educated at present. The barrier which prevented it from arriving at conceptions of a certain order is broken; it no longer believes in the infallibility of priests, in that of sorcerers, nor in sham grandeur. The opinion of the man of the people is today less erroneous in France that was that of a subaltern philosopher of Greece. Everything promises us, thus, a happier future.

May a glorious and general peace then soon reign over the most beautiful of empires! What prosperities are not offered by a country where the temperate climate participates in all the climates; which is neighbor to all; which, on the boundaries of its territory is blended with the south, north, east and west; where almost any productionof the earth, any plant is not exotic, if one wants to

acclimative it there; and for whose immense continent has two seas! What resources in a nation where philosophical activity and spirit is joined with the liveliest intelligence; a nation educated in the school of hard knocksduring a long revolution which has compressed and will redouble its impulses! All of this carries it to labor, to the useful results of commerce, of the sciences and of the arts. No, the most flourishing empires described to us by history, were only the precursors of fortunate France. To all these advantages, the French also join the most desirable moral qualities; it has always had as its inheritance politeness, amiability, grace, cheerfulness, love and respect for the female sex that it adores. It is not at all enough that a nation be opulent, it is necessary for it to know how to enjoy the gifts of fortune: the French, born in a temperate country, only know the true tactic of happiness, and can realize the flattering chimera after which we all run. Its redoubtable bravery, its warriormettle, have been for a long time impressed in the spirit ofits neighbors. Illustrious in the sciences and in the arts of imagination, it scarcely allowed Italy dominion in music,which it only perfected by adopting the principles of the French stage. Barely surpassed by England in works of luxury, France can, when it wishes, equal its rival in this part of the mechanical arts. Finally, through its physical and moral constitution, the Frenchman, privileged child of nature, tempers all his passions with his gaiety; his amour-propre, by the desire to please; his jealousy, by consideration for the very sex which inspires jealous sentiments; avarice, through the desire to shine; at the best age, anger, fury, through fearing of overly spoiling his features; no sad passion is hereditary for him; always feted by the peoples to whom he travels, c’est un Français means that he is an amiable man. In addition, he is loved or envied by men, and all women want to be lovedby him. Charming people, enjoy your felicities; cherish yourliberty and political equality, source of true happiness; honor the heroes who fought to give you these; reject anarchy, the destructive scourge of all the good things of

this world; enjoy your intended beauties; be the example of the centuries to come, and realize, think on this well, thatjust as a counterweight is always in proportion to the burden that it supports; just in this way, the more a peopleis free, the more need it has for severity in its laws and its mores!

In concluding this, let us renew the vows we expressed at the beginning of this paragraph: may soon a glorious and general peace reign over the most beautiful of empires! May Great Britain become truly great, by adopting a political and philanthropic plan, without which no wealth contributes to true public or individual happiness!

Vigorous philosophers of these fortunate isles, and youillustrious savants of France, join together more than ever,for never was a subject worthier of your concern. Show yourrespective nations that there is no rivalry between educatedmen. Immense commerce on one side, territorial abundance on the other; depth of serious ideas, embellished by amiabilityand desire to please; a penchant for melancholy, impulses ofjoy and gaiety….All that is lacking for one of you is to be found with your neighbor. One step, a single step separates you!41 The French swallow sings with the English, and they form but one harmonious concert; let us cross it then, this step which is almost nothing on our geographical maps; but let this be to reunite the chain of alliance and fraternity that the two greatest peoples of the world should never havebroken; let us carry to distant shores, to the limits of theworld this spirit of union, without which no people, no man will believe in the virtues for which we owe them the example.

41 (G): The Pas-de-Calais.

Chapter 1.Reflections on research into the Truth

The subject which we will deal with is simple, it is one; the happiness of men depends on it. It is with confidence that it inspires the hope of success that we willdevelop this subject; for everything that has been said on this subject has still not convinced the incredulous.

O Truth, it is you whom I invoke! Your source is so pure, your charm so powerful – guide my thought, heat the impulses of a soul impassioned for the universality of your empire. You are alone the unfailing remedy for all the woes that overwhelm us: if our lips, always excited by pleasures,feel the sweetness of your delicious fountains, it is done, nothing more can cause them to deviate from your divine essence. Cause, then, o holy Truth, that I may worthily invite men to taste your favors; support me, do not abandon me in a career so interesting for humanity: it is the interest of all, the cause of all that I come to plead before your august throne! O, with what pleasure I will quitlife, if the noble project that I am undertaking succeeds; if the man of good approves of my efforts; if the blind and unhappy who had misjudged me comes to be convinced that, outside, there is naught but bitterness; that, in you alone,all is happiness42! It is in blushing that one must make this declaration: all harmony is destroyed among men; for that which exists is only simulated. They only approach eachother in order to deceive each other; their smile is a falsity of convention; their sorrow, sincere when it comes to their own woes, is often only for show, and only offers adeceitful commiseration for those of others43; their 42 (G): It is not of the evidence of mathematical truths, nor of the certainty of physical truths that we have to speak: it is moral truth, seen from various aspects, that we will try to develop more than has ever been done before. 43 (G): The commiseration that one feels in seeing the woes of others is, however, the least suspect of the feelings of this kind, because it provides us with a favorable return regarding ourselves.

sumptuous garments are only thus in order to impose; their discourses are rarely true…but, whatever the woe may be, it is not without remedy. I have said somewhere 44: men, in their discourses, do not yet know how to take the right tonefor their lies; they are discordant when they lie; this is what may make us believe that their malady is not absolutelyincurable, and that if one manages to persuade them that thelie, whatever it may be, always redounds to the discredit ofthe liar; that, according to the type of life, ridicule, scorn, or horror are sooner or later the sentiments that they inspire, perhaps then men would take the only course ofaction that can be fruitful for them; perhaps they would be true out of interest for themselves.

Let us look back, in a few words, towards societies being born, and let us see if there is not a means for rectifying the destroyed harmony between men. First, I presume, they behaved in this world with frankness, energy, and, if you like, with coarseness; always victors or vanquished, but only acting with their physical faculties and with open force. This manner of being must not have beenpleasing for long for those who had the most spirit; for, being neither the most numerous, nor the strongest, they received the blows. Then, certainly, they had recourse to dissimulation: a weak weapon to repress the energy of the undisciplined man! The blows always continued on their course. Finally, they had recourse to the laws of equality, which repressed the strength of the body and of the amour-propre, and it was only now in open campaign that it was permitted to be stronger than one’s adversary. Likewise, there should have been a law of equality which defended against one having more spirit than another, but this was avoided at every moment: one would have pretended to be stupid in order to hide one’s spirit; and the imbeciles, having nothing to hide, would have been the dupes as, for the rest, they must have been throughout all of time, excepting those where no social laws exist, and where only the law of the strongest reigns. What then did men do to 44 (G): In my Essays on Music.

avoid the law which said to some: if your strength is superior to that of another, you will not use it at all to harm him, and who, mute with respect to others, could not prevent them from exercising the faculties of their spirit, more dominating than strengthitself? They did what we see still, that which they do today: it is through ruses that they conduct themselves, constantly clashing on right and left. Deceived or deceiving, dupes or scoundrels, a varnish of falsity is spread over all their actions. Among the cunning, one sees only ruses against ruses; among the strong in reasoning, only assaults of spirit; among the weak, only ridiculous pretentions… it is time to admit that ruse or sincerity, strength or weakness, everything is discovered, analyzed down to its root. It is time to feel that the ruse only serves to allow us to prepare a denial, and that one sees arrive at a place both he who takes an oblique path and he who takes the direct way. Is there no means that is more fitting for man in perfected society than these deceitful expedients, almost always dictated by lying, or a poorly understood amour-propre? Ah! If men would let themselves beled by the impulse of the truth that they feel, and which they resist; if they would (and they will be forced to come there), if they would, I say, no longer conceal the efforts that they make to resist the nature that cries to them: You deceive yourself while deceiving others….! Yes, all the snares are used; there is only one type of subtlety that can succeed, which is not having any. Generalized education has put us atbay; let us cease hiding from ourselves and others the greatest of truths, without which there is no happiness for man on the earth: this truth is truth itself. Let us not give into force, let us give in to reason, and the process is terminated.

There are certainly still ignorant men of all sorts, cradled by error, and by their disgusting amour-propre, and this race is incorrigible; let us not speak of these folk. Although they are the greatest number, they play the parade of the great comedy played by people of spirit, who sense what they are, what they are good for; who sense in what

they are stronger or weaker than those of their kind, and that dissimulation is a dishonor. It is to these men whom wespeak. If they wish to be just, they can be; if they wish then to believe that only truth triumphs, and that the best disguised lie only leads to repentance, they would be convinced; and the aplomb of their conduct, the frankness oftheir declarations, would render the sheepish type of people as docile, as flat as it is at present, in wishing always to be and to see that which it is not. Let us examine, then, the vast picture of the prejudices to which we surrender ourselves without consideration; let us unveil with a bold hand the lying customs vainly protected by time.Let us ask of man his ancient virtues once more; or rather, let us only ask him one of them, they are all within truth. Let him cease to pretend, to dissemble, to lie; let him cease through amour-propre to have the air of knowing everything, of understanding everything; let him learn to say I don’t know, in order to be believed when he says I am sure. What do ten minutes or ten years of shadows matter, since, Irepeat, it is entirely necessary for the lie to explode, anderror to be rectified.

Once men are educated, they seek to approach the commonend of happiness, the goal prescribed by wisdom; this end ofperfection depends on us ; it is in the moral sincerity of each reasonable being; it is thus, one to another, we will be able to communicate true good to each other. The cry of the ancient and modern initiates, this perfect unity, the object of their seeking, this Messiah so desired by the Jews, is truth. Here is the pure, immaculate Virgin, who will once more strike down the serpent, the true symbol of lying.The Greeks, the Romans, and various scholar of our countriesof the North have had the happy presentiment of it; but too distant, perhaps, from the physical knowledge that we owe toour century, and which should precede the confection of morality; it is for us to place the last stone in the arch of alliance, it is for us to discover for man the true

secret of mores and of the common good.45 But, you will demand, sincerity towards others, is this a means of being happy oneself, if it is not reciprocated? Rousseau took pridein being sincere, but was there ever a more unhappy man on the earth? However one takes it, man, the complete egotist,prefers himself to everything, only loves their deference tohim in others, and giving into him obligatorily is the only road to fortune and tranquility. — I want it. But in my turn, I ask what idea you have about the most amiable man, about whom you are always right? Who at most allows himself a sweet smile, a shaking of the head through which he seems to say: I would need to reflect about what you are saying before approving you. You form the idea of a complacent liar to whom you have recourse when your conscience is troubled by some doubts; but with respect to your esteem, he does not obtain it. You are irritated for a moment against a frank man who says to you: I don’t think so, and here are my reasons. But when you return home, you reflect about what he said to you, you calm down, and often his reasons are decisive for you, and you change your mind. Unfortunate, certainly, for men who expect to direct everyone else, for there is no man who can always be right in everything all of the time. This excess of amour-propre never belongs to wisdom. But you grant a full esteem to the man who approves you today, who disapproves you tomorrow, or who tells you frankly that he is not educated in the subject that you are submitting for his judgment. Letus return, then, to say, that only truth pleases us in others; and that if we want to take it on a bias in order tohave it on our side, a secret concern, a unreflective movement of pride, should warn us that it is simply by forcethat we wish to prevail. We then experience none of the calmof reason and candor that are the faithful companions of theaugust truth. Let us hasten to make use of public education

45 (G): The habitual study of the exact sciences should give to those who cultivate them a great love for the physical truths that they research with ardor, and through analogy they ought to cherish the moral truths. We other artists, we are the most amiable of liars; but since pleasure is often only an illusion in this world, should we not be owed recognition when our innocent fictions contribute to its happiness!

based entirely on true principles. Whatever weaknesses we may have in a matter that is so vast and discussed for such a long time by men more skilled than we, let us dare to givesuccessively our ideas on reform and establishment on an subject which is so interesting for our happiness.

Chapter 2 On popular instruction

FIRST PERIOD.

If we can dare to say this, it seems to us that the moralists, in analyzing all the branches of education, should have demonstrated to us, even more particularly, thatthe entire principle of education is in truth, or the absence of lying: they should especially not have been content with showing us the evils which we are prey to, but should have indicated the remedy for us, with more details. Almost none of our treatises on education are fitting for working people: they are without education, although they are the most numerous part of society. It is, however, from there that come the majority of the classes of men who rise by degrees, from ease to fortune, from fortune to education and to eminent positions. If error and lies are found at their source, they perpetuate themselves from class to class; it is in vain that one wishes to rectify the first education through a second one; it becomes impossible to entirely extirpate.

Let us enter into households; what do we hear being said to children from the tenderest age? This is not true; you are saying a lie. At a more advanced age: You are a liar; you have lied. The parents are certainly right; but these words should never issue from their mouths. Moreover, how would the children not lie, if we ourselves lie in their sight? I say further: how would they know what a lie is, if in our actions, in our words, we were not teaching to lie at every moment? We would say that those who surround the children take pleasure in teaching them what a lie is, in order to then forbid them to lie thereafter. Since the breast, a child receives its first lessons; from then on, he expresseshis will; and (something I have seen with the most tender mothers) to present the child with the nipple, and then takeit away while laughing when he wishes to seize it with his

little mouth, is already to give him a lesson in falsity which will be reflected in his mores, perhaps for his whole life long. The susceptibility of the morality of the newbornchild can only be compared with the delicacy of his physique, which is extreme. Coming from the crucible into nature, he is sensitive to the contact with the air that weighs upon his weak members; the wings of a fly incommode him; the bit of a flea is as violent for him as that of a dog would be for us. The substances which, in the breast of his mother, served for his nutrition, and which it could no longer provide, make him suffer for a long time; for him it is a crisis to appear in the light of the skies, to breathe the atmospheric air which pushes and releases his intestines. If, when he is several weeks old, you growl to make him be quiet, you already are creating confusion in hisideas. He reasons involuntarily, and nothing is more imperious than the reasoning of the provoking instinct. He cries because he suffers; and if you add to his suffering threats or blows, you confound his nascent reason, and dispose it to lying. Moreover, you give him two pains to bear instead of one, and you still want him to stop complaining!

Let us never deceive children, even in jest; If they cry, without need for nourishment, and freed from the hindrances of their swaddling clothes, let us let them cry: at every age complaining is the right of the suffering nature. If, at the age of three or four, the child cries obstinately to have what it desires, this is your fault. Never give in when you have correctly refused; let him feel that his obstinacy is useless, and he will soon correct himself. I have noted one hundred times that the same child is obstinate with his mother, a little less with his father,and entirely docile with a stranger who frequents the house.He calculates the degrees of tenderness that we feel for him; these different manners of behaving with different people, show that he reasons, and that he could be with all,as he is with one. Let us remember the child who cries untilconvulsions so that they would give him the full moon that

he sees shining in the sky. Another who is obstinate, cries,stamps his feet while demanding the human secretion; we havethe weakness to give in, we bring him his disgusting morsel:“I want”, he says, “for my nurse to eat it.” There is in this fact an entire rhetoric of amour-propre and the spirit of domination. Through the order of a mother or a father, toreduce his nurse to the lowest servitude, and for the price of this first complaisance, to demand another which is repugnant to nature; to be supposed to say: These are folk of your kind that we treat thus! No, it was only an insolentchild, with sixteen quarters of nobility46 through father and mother, who was capable of it.

When a child strikes you, pay him back blow for blow, never fail in this.

One day I saw a child who was capturing flies, which hekilled or pierced, while living, with a pin; his father toldhim it was wrong to kill these innocent creatures. —Spiderskill them too, he answered: — in order to feed themselves, says his father. A moment later the child began his littlegame once again; his father made him swallow the fly that hehad just caught, and he was cured of his pleasure in killingwithout need. Children can be compared to a soft dough susceptible to all kinds of impressions. Since it is easy toreform the defective structure of their members, and even simple ideas of morality, those of just and unjust can easily be inculcated in their delicate brain; but, if since the cradle we give them false ideas, at the age of two or three they need blows in order to destroy them, and replace them with other, more just ideas: I mean, in order to rectify our own work. What do the children do then? they hide in order to give themselves to their old and intimate habits; they become liars; and once a child has the idea of lying, and the idea of using it in order to deceive you, he is already a bad subject. The more you scold, the more you spank, the more he becomes a hypocrite, the more he will

46TN: Seize quartiers: a demonstration of the nobility of all sixteen great-great-grandparents.

hide in order to enjoy impunity. He needs two new lies in order to conceal the first one; he needs four in order to conceal two; eight to conceal four. This is a lost child, Itell you. If at fifteen or eighteen he is engaged with the King of Prussia, a salutary and long set of beatings47 will perhaps correct his judgment; but it is much more to be feared that he will become a gambler, a swindler, a thief; it is there the he finds once more his first inclinations; it is there, insensitive to shame, to scorn, like a filthy toad, he swims in his original elements. What to do then? I have said; distance children from even the idea of lying; let them be true in everything, and they will be such as they ought to be. The child eats too much, remove food from his sight. If he cries, let him cry. If he breaks the windows, put in bars. If he shows his behind, let him do so.If he beats, no, he will not beat if you have not beaten him, nor anyone else before him. I am almost always worried,discontented, when I see grown people playing with children;on the other hand, I see them amusing themselves with a puppy with pleasure, there is parity of rights between them;if they argue over a cake, the animal eats its part; if the child has seen the dog being struck, strikes him in his turn, the animal avenges itself; if one is stronger than theother, it is the weaker who gives in without humiliation; itis a struggle where the equality of prerogatives is recognized, which pleases the child, which teaches him to befair, and which corrects his reason without stimulating his amour-propre. Our amour-propre is scarcely revolted against the power of the instinct that always marches toward its goal, and according to the laws of nature; but it gives no pardon to moral pretentions. Finally, the child has already felt that with respect to him men violate natural equity, and that animals are fair: here is why have had to notice that generally children are charming when they play with a dog, and almost always naughty on the knees of their nurses and their parents: they have their reason, which they cannotdefine, for grumbling with men, and smiling on domestic animals. At the age where the child’s sensations begin to 47 TN: coups d'étrivières: beatings with stirrups.

develop, we do not fail to lie in order to know whether it lies or not. Let me, we say, smell your little finger to know if you are telling the truth; and in smelling the little finger, it is easy to smell the child’s entire hand. We do not doubt that this stratagem was invented by mothers or maids to know if he has not touched the bon-bons which weforbade him to take. What a desire to lie you inspire in thechild through your deception! Each time that he is guilty, do you doubt that he will take precautions in order to deceive you? And if by smelling his fingers, you tell him that he has lied, while he tells the truth, what an opinion you give him of your knowledge! —But then what to do if the child has acquired more dangerous habits? — Wash him often, so that need does not lead his hands into hidden places. In general children do not like to be washed nor to be put to sleep on their backs; he will find his punishment in the remedy itself, and you will avoid the danger of teaching him that you think he is a liar; you will persuade him that lack of cleanliness is the cause of the vice that excites your solicitude, which often is true. — But finally, at the age where the child washes himself, if one fears that he has this murderous habit, what to do? —The embarrassment is baleful for children and is good for nothing, a doctor said to me; if they do not have hands, they have very supple hands; thus, they must be overseen at night, must be prevented during the day so that the little girls, especially, do not make little retreats, little houses for themselves with the chairs and the window curtains. The main point is to prevent them from using the ruse, without causing them to think that we suspect them of malice. This is lying, you will say? — well, say boldly to them that one only hides the bad actions which you do not believe that they are capable of. In any case, nothing better than the truth, and to not speak it, or only say the half of it, is not lying.

Our social mores not being, and not being able to be entirely in a state of nature, is it not dangerous, you willsay, to inculcate a severity in the child from which he will

have deviate some day? — to deviate! Deviate from the truth! This deviation will never be necessary, unless he should become a factitious man, or a scoundrel. I know that we have said a hundred times that Rousseau’s Emile would be a man out of place in our societies; that he cannot love men such as they are, after having savored the sweet independence of natural laws, even restricted to a certain point. I answer that, in his Emile, Rousseau showed us the manwho is fitting for society such as he desires it, such as itought to be, and not such as it is. It was much easier for him to form a man for a still-imaginary society, than to reform all men in order to make them agree with the mores ofhis student. He shows us the sample in order for us to desire the rest; it is from one to the next, from neighbor to neighbor that we can correct general error; it is only God who can reform everything at once in order, so to speak,a new creation. In refuting Rousseau, I ask what author would dare to raise a student for society, such as it is, and rigorously? In writing his treatise on education, he would be halted at the first page. It is only in disguising our vices, in suppressing our abuses, in imagining things done and agreed to by all, in violating all the natural principles, that he can, in general, say what a priest, a king, a minister, a courtier, a businessman, finally, a man of the world, is. Should he lift the curtain for a moment, teacher and student would be consternated. For the rest, Rousseau has no need for commentaries, and especially not mine. I do not expect to go extensively into all the detailsof education; Montaigne, Locke, Pope, Rousseau, have carried out this important task. I only attack one point from which all perfections flow: I say that truth, inculcated early in men,would correct the ancient errors while preserving us from future errors. I am far from recalling man to his natural state from which he is distant, because he could not have done otherwise. I respect that which is established in certain regards, but I think that harmony would become more perfect, if truth was the sole basis of the education of allmen, although destined for the most part to factitious estates. —Truth, you will say, can it exist, can it be

reconciled with factitious estates and functions? — Yes, for just like a tree that is trimmed, shaped, made symmetrical is still a tree and produces good fruits; likewise, en taking the established society of men, a priestcan be a good priest like Fénélon, a king can be just and goodlike Titus and Henri IV, a minister can be honest like Sully48, a courtier can be sincere like Nivernais, a businessman honest like Jubié49. All carried out employments as far from primitivenature as the tree of the savage forests is from that which we cultivate in our gardens; but these men knew and respected the holy Truth, eternal and fundamental, which is one, with different facets for each estate; it is through itthat these virtuous beings have merited public esteem and the palm of immortality.50

48 TN: Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully, 1559-1641, adviser to Henri IV.49 (G): Probity is hereditary in the house of Jubié, honored over several centuries in the department of Isère. This businessman of integrity, named to the legislative body in the year 4, and since then resident in Paris, there preserves the ancient reputation of his forefathers. His spouse, young, endowed with all the gifts of nature and fortune, is able to ally with purity of mores the dangerous pleasures of the capital. In this public acknowledgement, it is sweet for me to join justice with my appreciation. 50 (G): We will soon examine the morality of men devoted to different estates.

Chapter 3. On the danger of blunting the sensitivity of Youth

An important point in early education, and which I havenot spoken about in the preceding chapter, is that of carefully preserving the original sensitivity of the children. This precious sensitivity is like a virgin in all her purity; it is frightened at first by the attention paid to it, and soon, through reiterated attacks, it is familiarized by degrees, and finishes by totally becoming totally dulled. Nothing resembles sensitivity and modesty: celestial in their purity, but horrible if they degenerate; the comparison is frightening. The same beauty representing,at two different ages, modesty and lasciviousness, would certain present two pictures as moral as they would be striking in their contrasts. During childhood too many brusqueries51 and punishments, although proportionate to this weak age, begin to dull sensitivity. In adolescence, bad treatment, too much study of abstract and dry sciences, the too frequent attendance at dark dramas, the blood combatof men or of animals, the executions of criminals, are as many extinguishers of sensitivity, which harden the soul andtake from it that precious velvet which belongs to sentimentas it does to the red fruit which has just been picked. Sensitivity is also the source of good mores and of talents.To render a child almost insensitive through bad treatments is to deprive it of the most precious possession of human nature; it is to prepare a hard man, whose insensitivity no longer has relation to the physical virtues. We judge othersby ourselves; by an inevitable reaction, we lend to others our sensations as we attribute theirs to us; and the hardened man who no longer dreads ordinary shocks makes others bear all the woes that he ignores. But how to reprovea child for his mistakes, and not compromise his sensitivity? One may, on the contrary, increase it while arriving at the same goal. Let us never correct children with anger; let us bear witness to them regarding the

51 (G): The notes represented by a number are found at the conclusion of each chapter.

distress that we feel about their faults; let us not say with hauteur: “you failed me,” “you disobeyed me”, but rather, “you made me feel bad”, and the true remedy is found. I love this expression from an ancient philosopher whose slave pushed him too far: “if I were not upset, I would punish you.” In Rome I saw the spectacle, which cannotbe effaced from my memory, of the consternation of a family due to the fault of their only child. I will report this exemplary scene for mothers, fathers, and those educating youth.

Invited to a concert at the house of a lawyer, a man ofinfinite spirit, and associated with a truly Roman woman, although modern. I arrived; and although it was broad day, the windows were closed, the salon draped in black, and the apartment profusely lit. “What is it”, I said to the domestic who opened the door for me, “I came to attend a concert: did someone die here?” “No,” he answered, “the concert is taking place. At that instant I saw from afar thelady of the house who was coming toward me, and I headed toward her. You are wounded, Madame, I said to her, noting that her arm was wrapped. “Do not be concerned”, she told me, “about all the odd things you see here. Here is the factof the matter: we had noticed, my husband and me, that our child is inclined to cruelty. (This was a little boy of about six.) Yesterday he wanted to throw a knife at the headof his governess, I stopped the blow, and the point of the knife entered my arm. – Did you punish your child? – Not by reprimands or blows, it is his heart, his sensitivity. We donot prevent him from going and coming, but no one looks at him, nor speaks to him, he is left to himself: like a littlemonster. The bloody bowl, which my spouse used to wash my wound, is in the chamber of my son, and will remain there aslong as it is appropriate; do you hear his sobs? He is desolate. We softly approached the chamber of the child; he was kneeling before the dish which was placed on a chair, and he was kissing it while saying: “Povera madre! Barbaro che sono! Ecco il suo sangue! (Poor mother, how horrible I am! Here isher blood!). “With regard to our concert,” she said to me, “here is our project. Today we will only perform lugubrious

songs. After some instrumental pieces, I will be the first to sing, you will play the harpsichord, I want my son to seeme completely. While I sing, if he is touched by my words and sounds, we want, his father and myself, no one to pay attention to him, and that people act as if he were not there.” We gathered; I instructed the first to arrive, astonished, as I had been, by the lugubrious appearance of the house; they instructed those who arrived later. The concert begins; the father is first violin, the instruments play with mutes; the choice of the music, the appearance of the salon, the sadness of the performers and the listeners, everything had the air of a funeral. Finally, the mother sings. It was a scene from Jommelli; a pathetic scene where an unhappy mother weeps over the behavior of her son. Duringthe recitative, the child, visage pale, looked at his mother, his father, and all of us one after another; but having arrived at the allegro agitato of the air, the mother’s expression became so passionate, so tender; these words, often repeated, “O madre sfortunata, o madre sventurata” while nobly gesticulating with her wounded arm, produced such an effect, that the child began to cry out, threw himself to the floor, while tearing out his hair. We were all weeping… they carried him to his room, his mother followed him; we kept, at that moment, the most profound silence: she returned a few minutes later, and told us that she believed he was cured of his inhuman impulses (2).

Yes, the basis of education is reduced to some fundamental points without which everything that one teachesto children is only scaffolding, a building in the air. Whatdoes it matter if a man knows several languages? He only hasone manner of thinking which he translates into all the languages, and which travels with him into every country. What purpose is there for him to be educated in the sciences, in the arts? If he is without principles, his passions will be unregulated, his talents will be superficial. Interesting the sensibility of the child, rather than blunting it and causing him to lose it, seems tome to be the most important point. Never to pretend nor lie

in any way before him; to behave so that he is even unaware of lying, is the second. If he lies in spite of your precautions, let him find, without delay, a punishment in the very lie he has just told. I do not mean that he should be scold, struck for having lied; humiliation arouses the amour-propre, and only makes him want to lie more adroitly; it only produces the hardening that we want to avoid: I wanthim to be the dupe of his artifices, of his cunning deviations; that, alone with himself, he be forced to reflect, and that he should feel that the truth always giveshim some well-being, and lying pains to bear.

Let us look for some examples that support that which we would like to prove; let us not be afraid of boring the reader who is bored with everything, because he is a burden to himself, and will call these foolishness. A little child,waking up, goes into his mother’s chamber: did you pee in your bed? she asks him. No. – You are very wise; oh, what a good child ! here, have a bon-bon. The maid comes in a moment later. - What, madame, you are giving sugar to this bad little child who has just peed in his bed? -_ Why, my son, the mother says coldly, did you not tell me that you had peed in the bed without wanting to? That you were sick52?- Yes, mother, I didn’t want to do it. – Maid, give me that drug that the doctor ordered. She has her child takea small spoonful; it is very bitter, proper for strengthening him, curing him if needed, or with no medicinal effect if the child is in perfect health. You willtake a spoonful in the morning, says the mother, each time that you pee in bed; the doctor ordered it, and your mother who loves you wants to heal you from this nasty disease. – If I don’t pee in bed I won’t take it? No, on the contrary, you will have a nice piece of pastry with jams, orsome other good things to eat. Follow this regime exactly, and be sure that soon your little gourmand will prefer sugar52 (G): It is almost always in a sort of dream, half-asleep, that children get rid of their needs; there is no lie in supposing that they have not entirely consented, although laziness has something to do with it. Moreover, out of six children, there are four with organic weaknesses which medicine must remedy.

and pastry to his nasty drug; that he will become fine, boththrough the good effects of the remedy and through his attention to not falling back asleep after having felt some needs. This correction and various others that a mother can imagine according to the occasions and the various genres oflies will certainly be a great success. But other defects? Insolence, anger, hauteur toward the domestic servants? . .. . Follow the same rule in everything, modified depending on the case; do not scold, do not spank, do not pretend, never lie; but in interesting the sensibility of your child,let something unpleasant take the place of that which he loves. Let us look for another example for these sorts of defects – it cannot be too much. I imagine that, on the day of a ball, a little girl at her toilette, mistreated her maid who did not do her coiffure to her liking; which I suppose happens frequently. The maid goes to complain to hermother. –My daughter, she says, I see that you are annoyed,that you have been impatient for quite some time; (Ah, and who is not?) you will fall sick. I order you to stay here today, you will take some refreshments to prepare you to be purged. She is purged or not; but thus she is relieved of her bad temper through depriving her, through interest, of her dearest pleasure. Compare the effect of these different corrections; contrast that which I have just related with the conduct of a mother such as I saw one day. All mothers are good, certainly; but without knowing the best way of behaving in order to fulfill the vows of their motherly hearts. During carnival, I went to a woman’s house, who was dressing her children who were to go snack and dance at a neighbor’s. She spanked one, pushed the other; they all cried in a piteous way. The contrast between their torments and their elegant jewelry, their charming little figures, made them even more interesting. – It’s all in vain, this poor woman told me, I use very possible means to entertain them, and I can’t manage. What means! I said to myself. But less not abandon this important subject yet, which one might say is the foundation stone of the social edifice. Letus talk about the first impressions received by youth, and their various results.

,

NOTES FOR THE THIRD CHAPTER.

(1) I saw a charming infant, four months old; he smiled at all who had sweet voices; he made faces at those whose voices were loud and hard, and cried when a certain man who had an out-of-tune voice sang next to him.

A man of letters told me one day that rather than putting children to sleep to the discordant sounds of the voices of their nurses, one should make us of a sort of serinette, whose sounds are more prolonged and perfectly in tune. He was right to think that these first lessons could have a beneficial influence on the organ of singing, not yetdeveloped in the child.

(2) Let us not forget that in the hot countries, where passions are vehement, striking apparatuses are needed to damp the senses. In Rome, the dead are uncovered when one carries them to the place of their interment. The funeral procession which accompanies them is imposing; each person is veiled from head to feet. The executions of criminals arerare, and make more impression. The real suffering of the guilty party only lasts a moment; the hammer blow that he receives in the head knocks him down, lifeless. Two or threeexecutioners, armed with knives, attack the cadaver of the criminal, cut it in pieces, and arrange the palpitating members of the sufferer around the scaffold, where they remain exposed for the entire day.

Chapter 4. On our first impressions.

They are, so to speak, indelible stigmata that never

leave our heart or our head. I say our heart or our head, but it seems, nevertheless, that, whatever the organ, it preserves the sentimental impressions of happiness or unhappiness, and that the brain is only the mechanical organ, fit for preserving the memory of all our impressions;that the seat of feeling is the storehouse, the treasury in reality, and the brain is only the record which keeps the accounting. We must have remarked that before remembering a sentimental fact, before recalling the circumstances and thetime when it took place, a sigh has already escaped from ourheart; we do not know, in such a case, whether the soul or the head has acted first; I think that it is the soul, whichacts first, involuntarily, or rather through some fortuitousrecollections, and that then the head, the deposit of the time, the place, and the relative circumstances, does the rest by reminding us of the details. We even feel a conflict, a sort of pressure between the impressed nerves ofthe brain; each one wishes to act first, but we have the faculty of holding them back in order to hear them one afteranother. This dominion over ourselves marks our pre-eminenceover the unreasoning animals, which have only an instinct torule over them, while man, superior to his instinct, opposeshis reason and often his prejudices to it.

The more the impressions are connected with our reasoning childhood, the more memory we retain of them at a more advanced age. No, nothing erases from the soul and fromthe brain the first impressions that they have received; I even think that in the state of madness traces remain of these. I am certain that I would rather forget the melodies of all my operas than the air with which I was rocked to sleep in my cradle. Who forgets the place of his birth, and the object of his first love? Due to these consequences, which no one can deny, we fell that the morality, good or bad, of our whole life, depends, not absolutely, but

considerably on the first impressions that we received in our youth. In vain a proverb would say that one can only make a musical instrument produce sounds fitting its nature.We rectify an instrument in order to make its sound better; likewise, childish reason is based on the first objects thatstrike it. With a lack of strong impressions prior to maturity, how many men let themselves be carried on the breeze, the vessel which carries them from life to death, because they float without sails, without rudder, and without compass; because they lack points of moral support which can stay their actions. One single good or bad impression can, as we will show, make an honest man of a scoundrel, and sometimes a scoundrel of an honest man, but never a man of spirit from a sot, unless time should rectify, by the force of strong impressions, some defective organ (1).

According to our custom, we seek to put into action thefacts that we wish to impress on the soul of the reader. Letus suppose that a child has received the strong impressions of immorality; he is, if you wish, the son of chief of thieves, the son of a dishonest gambler, hardened in his passion; or the daughter of a Laïs. According the impressions of immorality that the child will receive, what should happen to him? If, on the contrary, we imagine a child surrounded by

paternal virtues, the son of a upright magistrate, the son of a philosopher, what will happen with the good examples that he must have viewed from his cradle on? Is it his nature, if he is good, which allow him to overcome bad examples? Can a single strong impression that they child of the thief received during his childhood drag him away from vice? On the contrary, for the well-raised child, but with a

wicked character, cannot a single example of immorality awake within him all the restlessly sleeping vices? Let us proceed to examples.

I imagine that a beautiful, virtuous woman is dragged intoa cave of brigands; during their ferocious repast, each argues over the honor of having abducted her, and wishes to possess her as companion as soon as it is night. Pale, trembling, disheveled, she invokes God in a loud voice, she calls on her husband, her children, from whom they wish to remove her. However, lurking in a corner of the cavern, and consternated, the young child of the chief of the brigands observes this scene of horror, and receives a strong impression of virtue, which is nevermore effaced from his soul. Let us not believe that he always follows the métier of his father; when he is twenty, the same scene will perhaps be repeated; then he will brave every danger in order to save unhappy virtue; he will flee with her, abandoning his father, his mother, and all his criminal companions. How right the ancients were to strike the senses of youth

with spectacles, with monuments that left great and strong impressions! Immoral gamblers, tremble at being abhorred by your children! Impure wives, believe me, hide your mores well from your daughter, if you do not want her to curse yousome day! Why, she will ask, is this man whom I saw, so handsome, so brilliant with fortune, today so in such an awful, miserable condition? He lived with your mother, they will tell her. It is impossible to absolutely destroy the good

impressions that children have received from the magistrate,the philosopher, and the virtuous man. Even when their characters will tend to immorality, the first impressions with which they have been struck will lead them back, sooneror later, to reason and repentance. I repeat, first impressions are so powerful on the soft clay of childhood that they are reproduced each time that it runs the risks ofbeing carried away; and if only to temper, in general, dispositions to immorality, it is necessary to surround childhood, to strike its intellect, its soul, with sublime pictures that are never erased. – I ceaselessly see my mother on her death bed, a libertine told me; I was only

six, and I remember this: she held my hands in hers, pressedme against her emaciated breast; my son, she told me, soon you will no longer have a mother; be wise, my child; in a few years, take a virtuous man as a model, and seek to resemble him in everything. Ah well! In the midst of my disorders, my expiring mother is often before my eyes. – Youwill not perish in vice, I told him; place the portrait ofyour mother in your bed, on your heart; in order to escape libertinage, unite hymen with love; with these measures, youwill find the road of wisdom which you sigh for in spite of yourself. The shameful libertinage, which already repels you, will be erased from your heart, as a bad dream flies away at the moment of waking. We have just seen that, in spite of a natural inclination

to debauchery, a single good impression that time was unableto destroy, can rectify moral indispositions. How would it be then, if we struck new organs, deprived of any impression, with prepared pictures? When bad dispositions declare themselves, frightened by the danger, we seek to destroy them through contrary impressions; but often there is not enough time; the first impressions are too strong, too firmly rooted to be entirely obliterated. Who knows, moreover, for the theory of the sense organs is still littleknown, who knows, I say, whether the two contrary impressions do not remain imprinted, and whether their effects, continually in opposition, do not render the will of the individual undecided between the pro and the contra, the good and the evil? Finally, if so many contrary impressions do not create a man without determined character, the man who is so common in society, and of whichhe is the scourge? We can agree, we have never perfectly repaid, never made a deteriorated object like new once more.What efforts to cause a fold to disappear in a parchment, a fabric, a new paper! One must soak them once more, pass themover the fire, under the cylinder… and what are they then but matter that is almost worn out before having been of use.

What are the seeds that must be planted in the child’s heart? What are the principal and striking example which onemust share with him while he is still exempt from consolidated vices? Here they are. Childhood has very littlenotion of abstractions, it only knows how to generalize; letus assist it. Be it in the physical, be it in the moral. With satisfaction I will call truth everything that is beautiful and just; I will call lying, everything that is ugly and unjust. You will not deceive yourself in speaking thus generally. Your child, I suppose, will see a poor cripple, covered

with rags, and will say: Here is a lie. Yes, you will say, because this man is not such as he ought to be. If while asleep he has satisfied some need, he will say: I

made a nasty lie last night. -- Certainly, his mother will say, you should have asked your nurse to bring your chamber pot. What a beautiful truth, he will say, in seeing the sun!

--- You are quite right. ---Ah! Look, the truth is hiding itself. --- It is a cloud that is obscuring it for a moment.– My little brother is crying; it is a lie. ---I will let him nurse. ---Ah, look, he is laughing, it is the truth. In seeing a cake with frosting, he will cry: what a beautiful truth that is! ---Yes, but if you should eat too much, and get sick ---that would be a lie. ----What, the cake? ---No, me, who would have eaten too much of it. Do we need to continue this childish dialogue, as simple as it is instructive? He has just made a rip in his clothing: fix this lie for me, he says. We obey. –Oh, the lie can still beseen, in spite of the sewing. --- It is because evil is to difficult to repair. His father is stabbed with an épée in aforest. What a horrible lie, he cries! -- Yes, you are right. We tell him several days later that justice had just made a man die at the square. ---It is a lie. – It is the man who tried to kill your father, we reply. …Oh! That is well done, it is the truth.

Oh dear! Look at my rose that was so beautiful and wide-open yesterday, today it is wilted: it is a lie. - No, all that is born must die. God, who is truth himself, and commands nature, wants it to be that way. – Are there truths, then, that are lies, and lies that are truths? When God wants a thing, it is never a lie, but a truth that he does not want us to know53. – So you don’t know everything, mother? -- I am far from it. – How will I know whether God wants something or doesn’t want it? – When no one in the world can prevent it from being that way. His little brotherthat he loved so much just died; he weeps, he cries, it is alie! – Yes, he died because he wasn’t able to have his firstteeth. Who didn’t want it? His gums that were too hard. --- Why too hard? ----Because they are that way sometimes. --- It is a lie, then…No, no, it is like my flower, God wants itthat way, and mother doesn’t know everything, nor do I.

To give childhood a unique and precise idea of the just and the unjust, good and bad, what it should and should not do; at the same time to give it an idea of the eternal truths to which we should submit ourselves without question,is to shape its judgment regarding true morality; it is to teach it to distinguish the true and the false through the action of things themselves, before he knows the words that designate them. I do not think this method is bad, nor that it ever has been put to use.

Condillac used to say habitually that the most difficult thing, when one wants to write about a great subject, was tobegin at the beginning. Let us exhaust, then, if possible, the point which concerns us; let us speak still regarding childhood and adolescence, before moving on to the mores andthe prejudices of men.

NOTE FOR THE FOURTH CHAPTER.

53 (G): Huc usque venies et ibi confringes tumentes fluctus tuos. TN: Job, 38:11.

(1) One is right to think that first impressions, or even asingle solemn impression, occasioned by circumstances that one calls chance, often decides the fate of men: mut one must also think, that a single event does not strike all menin the same way; that in a crowd, few beings are affected similarly by a single thing; which shows that the connections between us and the thing which strikes us also depend on our organization, on our way of being and feeling.

Chapter 5. Reflections on the two preceding chapters.

The two chapters that we have just read are interestingto humanity to such a degree, the effects which are born from their morality have such great connections with social happiness, that we believe that we should add the following reflections. We have seen, in the penultimate chapter, how strong the impression was that the child of the Roman lady received from the lugubrious decoration of the house, and the sight of the mother’s blood; how much the libertine, whom I mentioned in the preceding chapter, was concerned with the sad spectacle of his expiring mother who invited him to change his ways. Nevertheless, we must, by reason of the climate where imaginations are more or less easily excited, and according to the recognized intelligence of thechild of all the countries that we wish to correct, prudently use the various means that we employ; one must strike harder in Rome than in Paris to obtain the right results. The device appropriate for a child of the south maytaken by that of the north to be a practical joke. The action of all things pleases the former, he gives himself tothis with a petulance which seems to us to be almost ridiculous; taciturn observation is our matter; he takes, hecrushes; we delay, we dissect. The fire of the passions makes the former highly susceptible to sudden impressions, while our youth reasons with more sang-froid. All would be lost if the child suspected that we wanted to surprise him. Let us imitate the powerful Being who directs nature: in governing the universe, he conceals from us the resources through which he carries out his prodigies.

The periods of birth, marriage, and death, are those which leave the strongest impressions on us. Let us thus celebrate these periods, and render them solemn. Verses, bouquets of flowers are destined to celebrate the happy daysof our life: let us also place a vase of flowers beneath theportrait of a father, a mother, or a friend whom we have

lost; thus the day of the anniversary of their death will beconsecrated, and the same homage will be rendered to us by our children and our friends. All peoples love their days ofceremonies and festivals; the more they are renewed from year to year, from century to century, the more they are impressed in their soul, they more they obtain their respectful assent. Woe to the people, who in their annals have no pious days consecrated to the divinity, to the virtues, and to recognition of their progenitors. Woe to thefather whose child does not embrace him on his birthday, andwoe to the child of such a father.

At the time of education, in the time where we are, we should see immoralities of all kinds fighting among themselves, endlessly varying in order to be attenuated and disappear; this is the final shining effort of the sepulchral lamp which is extinguished. But this same time isthat of virtues triumphing over vice, it falls to us to consecrate them in order to make them exemplary. Judge, you will say, how praiseworthy this custom is, it has existed for a thousand years! It is only pure things which can perpetuate themselves from age to age; it is thus for poetry, prose, moral actions and precious songs. Today, we have as it were exhausted the detours for arriving at the solution of the moral problem. Today, we are touching the true, we know it, although we do not yet have the courage topractice it exactly. This is our true situation; the moral shadows have dissipated in part, the dawn of happiness is shining for us, we are in the inbetweentime that La Fontainedescribes so well in a single verse, we are at the moment where,

Being no longer night, it is not yet day,

We must decide, it is time. Why always blush about the past, neglect the present, and desire a happier future? We are in fact always malcontent in reading our history; we would always wish to be able to add or subtract some pages;

we are also surprised to see ourselves there, we have much trouble in recognizing ourselves there as when, standing between two mirrors, we see the back of our body, which we scarcely recognize. Let us then prepare the future; in taking advantage of the present, let us make it such that itwill cause us some day to miss the past; let us not abandon to our nephews a glory with which we can adorn ourselves. Philosophy will have traveled through all its periods when it shall have cast the lie, whatever it may be, into the same gulf where formerly truth took refuge, and whence it will flee at lie’s approach – for opposites do not live together. Among the Greeks, philosophy was sometimes sublime, but it abused the people; it was the same among theRomans; among us, let it be true in all, sensitive, and popular: but in order to be such, we must focus all our shame on the lie; let this be our prejudice of honor, and not to lie in wishing to seem brave in all matters, when, a thousand times, we tremble secretly for our dear existence54.

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54 (G): We will soon develop the prejudice of the false and true point of honor,such as it should be for being true and salutary to society.

Chapter 6. On public instruction

SECOND PERIOD

Popular education.

We do not stop saying and repeating: popular education can only consolidate the greatest of all the moral revolutions that has taken place among men since they have joined together in societies. Will it be in vain that a formidable nation, prepared by instruction, should have risen en masse and spontaneously, in order to demand, with loud cries, that men be equal before the same law, and only differ from each other through their virtues and talents? Will it be in vain that our legislators, our magistrates will have invested their hours of study? Will it be in vain that our magnanimous warriors will have deployed their most masculine courage, and watered with their blood each articleof our constitution? No, such a great work cannot remain imperfect. The youth of today must learn what we were, what we are, and what its great destinies in the future will be. It will blush at our ancient servitude; it will admire our efforts to be liberated from it; in seeing itself regenerated, in seeing, everywhere, eternal truths replace prejudices, it will repay our labors, the pouring out of ourblood, with the respectful tears of recognition. Let us hasten, then, to educate the youth that will succeed us, letus persuade it that horror of the lie, under whichever facets it shows itself, will be the end of all human perfections.

We have already asked that every kind of dissimulation,of fiction, be distanced from the cradles of infants; that, drinking truth with their mothers’ milk, they be unaware, ifpossible, of even the existence of lying. Let us follow themin the instruction that the Republic prepares for them, and let us show that never deviating from the truth is fulfilling the intention of the sovereign people; it is

worthily crowning the labors of the legislator, the magistrate, and the warrior.

The rights of man must be explained to children in their primary schools, at least once per decade. Instructionmust teach young Republicans that they all have the same political rights; that all employments, the most eminent positions belong to all, and that only a lack of talent, or immorality, can keep them from these.

I will not say that one day in each decade, or in each month should be consecrated for teaching his religion55 . Teaching his religion! It is found in every heart. Look at the sky with love: if your chest tightens, if your eyes darken, God has already received your tears. Let us teach children to be true; let us say boldly to the pure and true child, that his heart is the sanctuary of the divinity.

With regard to the various cults that men have adopted in order to honor one and the same God, let us say to them that they all are acceptable to the Eternal. In this idea, let us teach them to respect all. Since all the citizens attached to the various cults send their children to primaryschools, no cult in particular should be recommended nor celebrated there. Without harming their different beliefs, let a single prayer serve for all. “Powerful God, God of all the nations! May your name be

hallowed. Hear the first declarations of youth whom crime has never sullied; inspire in the heart of your children love of truth, source of all good; love of fatherland, of our legislators, our magistrates, and the brave warriors whoprotect us. Give us their courage; through their example, cause us to shed our blood, should it be necessary, in orderto support the rights of man and of nature; inspire us with love for our relatives whose tenderness equals that which you have deigned to have for us; cause, great God! That eachday we respect old age and the unfortunate, so that our

55 (G): This is the expression that we have used formerly.

children and our brothers extend a helping hand in the time of our decrepitude and our distress!.....”

The child of the Christian, the Protestant, the Jew, the Muslim, can blend their voices in this same prayer: it is thus that the young French will learn that they are brothersunder the same laws, and all children of the same God. Afterwhich, the first objects of instruction that will concern the students will certainly be to teach them to read, to write and to figure. The child of the man of the people who is destined to the estate, the métier of his father, has no need to acquire other knowledge. Télémaque would be the first book that I would put in the hands of children. The examples, which ordinarily serve for teaching them to read, will be extracted from the rights of man and the citizen, such as they are found at the head of our constitution.

The education of young women is even more interesting for the government than that of young men. It is women who beginthe education of all the men; it thus falls to hem to inspire, to inculcate them, from a young age, with the threefundamental principles of the regenerate man: love of truth,love of fatherland, and the morality of the man of good, which is the exercise of the virtues. I think that their studious activities, such as reading, writing, and the firstrules of arithmetic, should only occupy have of the time in the schools; all the rest should be employed in shaping their heart and their spirit; each day one of the precepts that I have just enunciated should be presented to them, with as much clarity as sweetness, with as much pleasure as love on the part of the instructresses, if we wish the exhortations to be profitable to the young students.

“ My dear children,” they will say to them, “let us first thank the fatherland which has deigned to choose us to each you your duties as citizens, and which deigns to concern itself, constantly, with caring for your instruction. The magistrates know that public welfare will depend on the maternal education which you will give to your children, for

one day you will be mothers. It is from you then that they will await virtuous citizens; and our tender solicitude, toward you, presses us to make you know the sacred duties that you are destined to fulfill.

All the vices of the soul have their source in the lie; preserving a child from this defect is to maintain him pure,is to prepare him for all the virtues, all the talents, is to dispense to him in advance all the goods of fortune56. What mother does not love, does not adore her children! Do you not already feel that the fruits of a holy union, contracted with the man whom her heart has chosen, will be the first objects of your tenderness? You should then desirethat your children should be heaped with glory and happinessin this world. We will, my dear girls, give you the unfailing means of succeeding and fulfilling your vows. The proofs will be so clear that you will not even be able to doubt them57. Then I would recall to the young French girls everything I

have said above regarding the absolute necessity for distancing children even from the idea of lying, if it is possible. Why do children lie? - Because they have an interest in deceiving us. Let us distance from them the reasons determining this interest; let us, on the contrary, given them an interest in being true, and the goal is fulfilled. The caprices of children almost all come from our

56 (G): The instructress speaks to poor little girls for the most part, and whodesire certainly the adjustments that the coquetry natural to their sex makes them cherish: this is why I promise to their children the gifts of fortune. 57 (G): Let us not forget that our little mothers of seven, eight, or ten years of age, began first to profit, for themselves, by the lessons which seem to be given to them in advance only for the time when they will be mothers of families. Their little amour-propre, flattered at being mothers, and at having well-brought up children, is, I think, an infallible stimulant for young women. I have already said it several times: it is indirectly, it is in interesting thesensitivity, that it is necessary to repress in children the vices which humiliating punishments cause to rebel, much more than correcting.

inconsequences; children would always march straight ahead in the path of nature, if our caprices, our injustices, our inconsequences did not sidetrack their feeble judgment. The spirt of children is like their body – it bends whereupon itloses its equilibrium.

What things must we say to them to raise their souls to love of fatherland? The first education of man is placed in their hands; heroes, great men must receive their first impulses from them; public welfare depends on their maternalcare. Finally, we can remind them of the Roman women who were so proud of their birth, that none other but a Roman, not even a King, might dare to aspire to their hand. Why would French women be less proud of being Republicans than these heroic women? However, the ill presses on us, as well as the necessity of the remedy; for almost all French women are enemies of the new order of things. The frightening aspect of the time of terror instilled fear in their timed souls, to the point that they feared participating in the horrors committed though avowing themselves today to be Republicans. But let us not despair at the their quick submission: already their Greek and Roman costumes attest totheir opinion; their jewelry, which was always the translator of their secret penchants, is that which they hold most dear; they will soon see that the habit of libertyis more fitting for them than any other, and they will better know how to make the political sentiments of their charming beings become attuned with the habits that decorateit.

Chapter 7On public education

Third PeriodChoice of an estate

This third period only has to do with adolescents who are intended for study of law, the sciences, and the arts. It is certainly not for us to go into all the details relating to these subjects, they do not form part of our plan; we do not doubt that the professors of the central schools, chosen by a jury whose lights are recognized, and whose intentions are pure, give to their students all the principles of the sciences and the arts in the greatest possible order. We only dare to suppose, and this relates toour project, that in teaching them Latin through translation, they would prefer the moral thoughts of Marcus Aurelius to the metamorphoses of Ovid. That if they explain to them, that if they have them translate the various systems of the Greek and Latin philosophers regarding the nature of the pagan gods, on the creation of the universe.. . .that this be in order to show them from how many errors they have been delivered in seeking the truth which today strikes us with greater power. Finally, in all the sciences with which they are occupied, whether politics,history, morality, ancient mores, the religions themselves, that we never lose sight of the fact that the truth should always fix the attention of the teachers on their students; let us give them the love of sincerity, a horror of untruth,and let us believe that thus, they will be prepared for all the sciences, even those where illusion predominates, and for all the virtues. It is then that they will enter the polytechnic school, and the schools of painting, sculpture, architecture, or the conservatory of music. Provided with

good moral principles, enthusiastic lover of the august truth, attached by all the sentiments of recognition for thefatherland, which concerns itself with his felicity, this amiable youth will carry into its respective families the republican spirit, to which that of the already superannuated parents finds it difficult to bend. It is truly this which will consolidate the revolution, and it is to this that we will owe the preparation of good mores.

Chap. 8. On prizes of emulation.

The prizes that formerly were given in the colleges, tothe young folk who distinguished themselves in their studies, stimulated their amour-propre as much as they excited new talents. 58  Then we saw nothing above a monarch; thus we gave the students, for only a few days, thetitles of emperor or prince, after which the monarch became bourgeois once more59 . It is pointless to say that these vain titles would be absurd among the Republicans. I would even exclude the crowns and the medals; the latter belong tothe hero who has saved his country, to the great man who is deceased, or about to descend to the tomb, and to virtue; the medals are the decoration of the fathers of the fatherland. If one wishes that crowns should be truly appreciated in the future, the too prodigal use of them thatis made in our theaters should be prohibited; no palm shouldbe seen publically without the “authorization of the government”; then they would be sent by everyone. These ordered crowns, tossed by the valet of the author of the, orby the wigmaker of the actor, are sovereignly ridiculous, and only serve to wither in advance the most beautiful titles of glory that one may grant to those that are worthy.

In a public assembly let us distribute some good books to the young people who have distinguished themselves; but amore solemn prize, the prize of truth, should be given annually to the students of the two sexes who have deserved it.

Here the greatest pomp is necessary; here the first of the virtues, that which brings man closest to his Creator God, should be celebrated in all the structure of religion. The tears of the spectators should flow when they see arriving in their midst the young people of both sexes who have been worthy of this august prize. Before they are 58 (G): See the chapter “How one can excite talents while fomenting the amour-propre as little as possible.” 59 (G): The Bourgeois Gentilhomme by Moliere was the true satire of this behavior.

introduced in the assembly, the apologia of truth, its celestial influence on mores, should be declaimed, with enthusiasm, by a magistrate in ceremonial garb. At the end of his discourse, he should say: Citizens of France, the young people who have observed the sacred precepts that you have just heard will appear before you; heaven will receive them with the same jubilation as that which you will manifest when seeing them. The young men will be worthy someday of the immortal palm owed to virtuous males; the young women will serve as examples for the best mothers of families…..Appear, children whom the heaven has given to us!Come receive the most august prize that a great nation can bestow on its virtuous children! --- People of France! I ask of you the most profound silence.

Now the children, dressed in white, the modesty of innocence imprinted on their brows, enter the assembly, led by their closest relatives. The children go to prostrate themselves at the feet of the statue of Truth that is in themiddle of the enclosure; they rise once more, and place themselves, standing, around the divinity. The magistrate says to them: “Oh, my children! Your instructors, your classmates, all

those who have been your acquaintances, have born witness that never the least lie has sullied either your speech nor your actions. If weakness, inseparable from humanity, has sometimes caused to you fail, you have certainly not sought to disguise these light faults; you have, on the contrary, avowed them with candor, without subterfuge, and with all the marks of repentance. In order to reward this purity of soul that characterizes you, your magistrates say to you today through my voice, that they will watch over you and over your families, if they are in indigence.) Oh, my children! You are, in the eyes of the Eternal who regards usin this moment, as pure as the rays of the day: receive the homages which are to truth, to the most august of virtues.”

The magistrate descends from his seat, and goes to embrace all of them. At this moment, a triumphant fanfare

bursts forth, which is joined by the applause of the spectators. After this, the magistrate conducts the virtuouschildren and their relatives to seats that surround his, andwhich have remained empty until this moment; each seat, intended for the children, is decorated and surmounted by a crown. Then, a holy hymn, which concludes the ceremony, is performed by the musical ensemble. What child, a spectator of this annual ceremony (all the various schools should be present), what child, I say, would not want to become worthyof such homage? What efforts to deserve it! And after havingbeen worthy, what child could become degraded to the point of ever succumbing to the degrading vice of lying?

What does it matter, I will say to those who object thatthe wises, the most virtuous, the most truthful children will not always be those who will have the most intelligenceand knowledge: in this modern world, we are not lacking in folk with a certain spirit; but we are lacking in many folk of probity.

In leaving the central schools, part of the young people, as I have said, go on to the polytechnic schools, schools for painting, sculpture, architecture, or music; . . . . . . but the child of either sex belonging t the man of the working people, concludes his instruction in the primary schools, in order to take the métier of his father, of her mother, or any other estate. Let us not doubtthat youth, educated in the manner which we have just succinctly indicated, preserves, at a more advanced age, sentiments of love for the truth which we scarcely note among the folk of this class. It is only in instructing the people that we will preserve it from these hatreds of nationagainst nation, which we can scarcely define, and which are almost all based on absurd prejudices; that we will preservethem from these ancient antipathies for religions different from their own, which have so many times caused human blood to be shed in the wars of religion; finally, it is only in educating the people that we will approaches, as closely as possible, to common happiness, the constant object of all the vows of our philanthropic philosophers.  

Chapter 9. On public happiness.

Pure felicity is a fine chimera which humanity should renounce, because the physical of man is opposed to it. Man grows or decreases; his faculties increase or diminish. Having arrived at the limit of his growth and his physical perfection, only perhaps a single instant remains in his maturity, after which he already beings to deteriorate. In judging the increase of his forces and his faculties, man gives himself to the hope of increasing his enjoyment; in feeling his faculties extinguished, he regrets, each day, that which he has lost. There are, certainly, pleasures at every age; but to enjoy amply, in the certainty of increasing his pleasures still more, or to enjoy at a mediocre level, with the certainty of a daily diminution, give sensations for which the resulting well-being is quite different. The moral of man is, to a certain point, dependent on his physical; it must participate in the mobility of his active or passive being; but independently of local truths and of convention which one cannot deny, to the observance of which everything is subject. As long as this fundamental truth is not felt nor respected; as long itwill not be a prejudice of idolatry among men, they will only vaguely desire the happiness that they will never achieve. But let us not be discouraged; we still have the hope of arriving at this final degree of human felicity. Thereason that allows us to believe that men can be happier than they have been up until the present is that they have still not generally used the only means for happiness that is in their hands; the only means that can lead them to the height of felicity of which their nature is susceptible. This means, which the reader has already guessed, I will explain soon, I dare to believe that it is infallible. I do not fear that it will be listed among the class of imaginaryprojects of public happiness, like those of the Abbé de Saint-Pierre60, who wished to circumscribe the power of the great in order to render the little happier, as if pride 60 TN: Charles-Irénée Castel, abbé de Saint-Pierre, (1658 –1743), French writer.

could ever capitulate to its victims; as if the powers of the globe forming a confederation, would even want to bind their own hands and thus deprive themselves of saying with our children: I, I am the greatest! Universal peace, general concord among men, all exaggeration apart, lies in the abjuration of lying in any form in which it will appear;in the love of truth that must be inspired in children. Absurd privileges are already abolished in France, and the right to be elevated to the highest dignities belongs to allthe citizens. Justice has wished this; our pride must be satisfied. In order to replace one letter with another; to say “loi” [law] instead of “roi” [king], we have undergone the most terrible moral revolution, after which we are only lacking a sentimental education which inspires the notion ofthe true in our mores, in our social processes, as we have just prescribed for our political institutions. However, in order to establish the spirit of order, active surveillanceon the part of the government is needed61. After such a frightening moral tempest; when fortunes are overturned; when every man who, by prejudice of birth, surpassed other men, is obliged to return to the common level…. partisan hatred is inevitable; it is difficult for calm to be reborn after such a storm, and all the efforts of the government should tend to the desired goal of the French, who, fatiguedafter a long agitation, sight for consoling repose.

Chapter 10. On the need for active surveillance on the part of the Government to consolidate

Republican spirit.

The malady most natural to man is antipathy towards that which does not concern him personally. It is from here that his indifference to public matters arises, to which he only voluntarily grants one hour in the day, as a sort of relaxation. It is difficult to make men understand that the general good is the source of all individual goods; they

61 (G): Year 5.

prefer to persuade themselves that everything is in the bestorder possible, when they are provided for. In order to provide for themselves, they caress themselves, deceive themselves, strike each other, knock each other down while all running after the same things; if all do not hurry, sooneverything is taken, and the most skilled remains in sole possession; whence it happens that a great people is only a assembly of egotists where everyone is only concerned with himself.

For a long time it has been said that a well-ordered house was a little republic; thus there are in Paris as manyrepublics as there are well-ordered houses, for each individual house is only concerned with itself. Once one canlook for gold, with which one has a fine house, boxes for the spectacles, and friends who flatter you, one is little concerned with the grand republic. Through major affairs with the former government, one came to fortune. Finance, government of domains, the robe, the command of provinces, military employments, places at court…. all these favors were obtained, on the very natural condition that one was attached to the government that enriched you. Beyond a part of these resources, the regenerate French will open still other roads to obtain ease or wealth; but one will need, nevertheless, to be truly republican in order to find these open roads; for just as one obtained lucrative employments, honorific positions through one’s devotion to the royalty, it is through a similar devotion to the republic that one will merit the suffrages of the people, and the attention ofthe government (1). Commerce has suffered much; the seas arestill not free62; while waiting, a scandalous usury concernsa part of the businessmen ruined by the revolution; but thisill is only temporary; commerce, having become as honorable as it was ignoble under the ancien régime, will be the most general resource of the nation, and businessmen will not allow their estates to be dishonored by fraudulently

62 (G): Vendémiaire, year 6. 

calculated wagers.63 Just as in England, commercial operations will so closely linked to the success of the government, that the merchants themselves will oversee, through their interest, the republic. In awaiting this orderof things, which is not far away, let us not count on the education that the majority of the classes of citizens will give to their children. The rich proprietor, of whatever class he may be, despoiled by the revolution of a part of his riches, retains a bitter recollection of the new order of things; it is hate rather than love of the current government that he inspires in his descendants. Let us counteven less on the previous noble; he will consume the rest ofhis existence in pointless longing for his abolished titles (2). With regard to the parvenus of the day, we know that are also shredding the Republic in order to conceal their current rapine, and to give themselves a certain tone of ancient nobility of which many only knew the antechambers. Should we rely more on the education which the laborious manof the people will give to his children? No! It is in approaching the rich, for whom he works, that he establisheshis fortune; and through interest, he is always read to flatter them, to adopt their prejudices and their errors. Onwhom then must we count? If so many classes of citizens are alienated. On the good spirits who are found among the men of these same classes, especially on them who have vigorously felt that baseness is too great a sacrifice, too high a price for riches; these will bring along all the others. But the government must watch over institutions and educators, who are already preparing the future generation for us. Every twenty-five years we see a new generation appear which pushes behind the one that gave it existence; the old man may well censure in his corner – he only finds his old companion to listen to him. If he does not give intonew opinion, he cedes himself in consuming the remains of his life. However, let us not demand a unanimous will between ancient and modern men – this is impossible. Old Age

63 (G): There is the same distance between a true businessman and a loan shark,as there is between an ambassador and a spy.

regrets the past; youth innovates, perfects, enjoys present and future; it is youth which make the law, which regenerates in good, or which demoralizes the generation whose place it takes. But in preparing, through education, the generation which soon will take over our post, we must still attract to obedience and peace that numerous enemy class which lost everything through the new order of things.What means is there of bringing back so many people crumpled, crushed by a revolution that they detest? I only know one which can succeeds – this is to force them, in compromising their personal interests, not to love of the new régime, which is impossible, but to constrain themselves, and to have patience. The partisans of royalty are known; their hate for the Republic is too profound for them to be able to conceal it; two words of conversation with them suffice to make them recognize it. However, these enemies of the Republic have more need still than the patriots, to carry on their numerous business affairs with the government, and to solicit its favors. These are those who are continually pressing it for a request for divorce, adeletion of emigration, a lifting of seals to allow them promptly take possession of their properties, etc., etc., etc.64

If their demands are just, we owe them justice, but nothing more than strict justice, and no favors. Being the first to be heard is one, however, and they have a thousand ways of being first. Now, what prevents the government from ordering its ministers and administrators to favor the true republican? I am very much deceived, or this sole part, doneand executed, would suffice to cause this bad tone to rapidly end; to put a brake on these ironic and insulting words which they affect to use in talking about republican institutions (5). They would say, with Tartuffe:

He is with the heaven of accommodations.

64 (G): Year 6.

Pressed by their interests, they would feel (they already agree) that every honest man owes respect and obedience to the laws of his country; they would make themselves known through several good books that they would publish, in whichthey would attest to their civic devotion and their horror of every act perturbing public repose, and then they would be favored as good citizens. The Frenchman is naturally a man of honor; once he has published and signed his politicalopinion, he would behave in accordance. The most vacillatingman is force to settle himself in such a case; he has made for himself an invariable rule which he does not dare to publicly infringe, and which takes him softly and without compromising himself toward the general opinion. But before seeing more happiness reign among men, a prejudice must be destroyed, and another substituted in its place. Here is thegoal of this work, here is the object of my vows that I willtry to make palpable, and to prove to be possible in the following chapters.

NOTES FOR THE TENTH CHAPTER. (1) The suffrage of the people! you will say, is this not

obtained through a cabal? I answer that one can be deceived in Paris, where one scarcely knows another; but in the department one knows each other better. For the rest, in Paris, as elsewhere, the man recognized to be immoral will be rejected; the public conscience is always pure. (2) In cooperating, as I have done, with the musical

revolution, I have remarked that I have not been able to convert a single one of the partisans of old French music. If they were compelled by the charm of some modern productions: “I love this number”, they say, “because it is in the genre of Lully”. It is the same for nobility, a thousand times more metaphysical than music; one who has

felt the charm of its flattering existence, can never be persuaded that he was in error. (3) In abolishing the numerous holidays of the ancient

calendar; in giving another three or four days a month to labor, through the adoption of the new calendar, this is an immense tax that the nation imposes on itself, through the number of working days with which it enriches itself.

Chapter 11. Prejudice to be destroyed; means to this end.

It is with the point of honor as false as it is destructive, with atrocious duels, with the lie disguised inall its forms that we will be dealing. It is from these destructive scourges of common happiness that we must purge society so that man can there breathe in peace. Seeking repose, desiring some surety without this reform in mores, is like, in a dark night, marching with solid step to the precipice which infallibly must swallow us.

O, how man is degraded, wicked, immoral and unhappy, all at once, when it is only possible for him to live in society by exposing his life each day, or by snatching it from others!

Nevertheless, the scorn for life that is affected by certain men accustomed to support their honor with the pointof a sword can be classed with the most horrible lies. In supposing that our life belongs to us, that we can dispose of it, without cowardice, as we think is good, this cry of nature which is heard at each moment, which halts us at the least unexpected noise, which, even in dreaming, starts us sweating at the sight of dangers – is it a chimera? This Adonis who lives in softness, who, in his interior, on his person, spares no expense in giving himself all the commodities of life, even the most superfluous; who chases the valet who does not know how to avoid the least pain effort for him, does he go then, with gaiety of heart, and in leaving his perfumed toilette, to deliver his life to theblows of an adversary as foolish as he? No, I do not think so; I likewise do not believe in the scorn for life which our young people affect, no more than I believe in the scornof the elegant jewelry that our beautiful dancers in societysacrifices and tread under their feet during a waltz. This contradiction regarding the object that we cherish the most,and that we seem to scorn, is a flat-out lie. In reality, what is the point of these stratagems? what is the reasoning

which each makes tacitly to himself? Man says to himself:Women are weak and seek a support in us; let us be brave, although our hearts are trembling; let us have the air, in order to obtain their favors, of knowing no fear, and of preserving in our combat this gracious calm that they cherish (1). Bravery and graces! What more can they desire? Bravery supposes a strength that they do not disdain in love; further, a secret instinct tells them that he who has the strength to make their resistance futile is alone worthy of the name of man. Borrowing their graces is to bring ourselves closer to them through the same tastes. What does the woman say in treading on her jewelry? I have no need of this to be the most beautiful. I wear jewelry to be like everyone else; and, however, one does everything so that the jewelry will be unique in its kind. – It is likewise more beautiful, more courageous, more sublime, they will say, to scorn, or to seem to scorn that which we have that is most dear. --- Yes, prove to us that lying is necessary to mores;just the desire to support such a paradox, attests to the frankness which guides us, the perfect happiness which we enjoy and which we ought to enjoy!

God forbid that I should not admire the generous warrior who endangers his life in order to save his country;that, finding the laws mute, the man of honor should not himself avenge the injury that he receives. In this circumstance, if the tranquil young man, if the father of a family are in danger of perishing in order to avenge the outrage done them by a madman, it is the fault of the laws. As long as there is not a strict tribunal which concerns itself with the life of men, to the degree that it is concerned with their money in all tribunals; as long as the one who issues triumphant from single combat, will not be a thousand times more to be pitied than he who has succumbed, it will certainly be necessary for everyone to carry out their own justice. All our suits, I repeat, have to do with a sum of money, our tribunals are constantly busy with citizens’ fortunes, and it is with their lives, which are threatened at every moment, that they should be concerned. Today, I know, the honest man himself prefers to risk his life than to be taken for a coward: and this is where the prejudice which we are talking about is execrable; but, if it were agreed that there is nothing more cowardly than

taking one’s brother’s life, or risking one’s own, for a word, a quarrel for which, most often, one dares not explainthe real reason, who would give oneself to the dreadful danger of spilling the blood of a man whom one embraces a moment later, dead or wounded, as if the blood shed could ever make reasonable that which cannot be reasonable? We have said a hundred times that the Greeks, the Romans, were brave, and did not at all call on dueling, as we do, in order to assert, most often, that women are not coquettes, and do not like change. This is a remainder of Gothic barbarity which we have inherited from our chivalrous ancestors. If the law against dueling forbade, above all, combat when it is a matter of galant women, gambling, and money lent without a receipt, there would be many fewer of this sort of combat. The ancients, you will say, had other prejudices, if they did not have ours. Yes, they loved the truth above all, and we only love appearances. Among their valorous warriors, their history only mentions one coward, aThersites65 who was unable to defend his fatherland. We are, certainly, as brave as they in the armies; but, in our social proceedings, in our combats, in our individual debates, we are only children in comparing ourselves to them. A sort of indecision, stemming from our old prejudices, blinds us. Ah! How happy men are to be born in aclimate with a constant temperature, which gives certain tastes, strongly pronounced passions! I repeat, all our actions seem to be shaky, as vacillating as our climate. Experience and education can, nevertheless, make us men withcharacter; and the love of the truth that we all feel, whichwe all revere in spite of ourselves, in the midst of our frivolities, alone can lead us toward this desired goal. Letus not yet leave this digression, which is of the greatest consequence for mores. A single neglected point would be an excuse which ignorance would use for support. Let us look atall the facets of our reasoning; let us forces all the retrenchments where a barbarous prejudice can take refuge which overwhelms reason, which withers reason, and causes

65 TN: Thersites, a soldier during the Trojan War.

all men to moan, no matter what degree of bravery they may boast of.

Let us, first, establish as an incontestable basis, that through love for his life, if man does not fear being accused of cowardice; if he does not fear to make public hissecret errors or his injustices, he would have recourse to the tribunals, rather than through spilling his blood, or that of his peer. Do not be deceived, young man, the first cowardice is the lie; and every man that endangers his life for no reason lies to his conscience and to nature. If you do not dare to divulge the motives for your combat, you are suspect, you are guilty: slitting throats clandestinely to escape the law is something for the brigands of the forests alone. Let us say it frankly: I see only injustice in the one who expects to be judge in his own case; I see only liesin the supposed honor that guides him; I see only assassination in the blows he delivers to his enemy. What does it matter, he will say, if I am insulted! - and what is an insult? -It matters little to me, he will say further, if were a truth, if it injures me, I cannot suffer it. -- Enough; you want to be wronged when it suits you, youwill defend it at the point of your épée; and if you are reproached for this crime, you will fight once more. You want to commit crimes as you please; and you want yet more, you want impunity for them. This is where I am waiting for you, and all the foundations of society are destroyed, if the laws tolerate this abuse. ---The laws are mute regardinga thousand affronts that must be avenged. --- The silence ofthe laws can never be presumed; for it alone, nevertheless,can we put our arms in our hands; and that which you call affronts, are the motions of your conscience which dreads deserved reproach.

If the just and unjust were better determined, we wouldbe less ticklish about honor. It is lack of understanding each other that we always putting ourselves in a huff. We see that we are attacked everywhere, because we are entirelycorrupt, and can be attacked everywhere; everything becomes

satirical for us, because we unceasingly deserve satire; after all, everything is a point of honor for us, because wehave no more honor; because we have substituted prejudices for true honor. Through amour-propre and through ignorance, one alone wishes to take through brute force that which belongs to us. (It is with constraint that we do the good, and it is with a false shame that we distance ourselves fromthe bad, as if we were not sure of its reality. Ah! Let us take a decisive posture; let us know what belongs to us, that which belongs to another, that which belongs to all. Dowe need to say it? The air, the upper hand, the best seat atthe spectacle, if I pay for it, the water from the river andthe fountains, the prostitutes66 . . . are for everyone and for the first occupant; my properties are mine; and if thereis some obscurity in the titles, we commonly have recourse to the courts. Indulgence for youth, respect for the old andtowards honest women are sacred duties: there is scarcely any disagreement about these facts. Let us then move on to review the various genres of insults that one can be subjected to, and let us see whether, in almost every case, prejudice, that is something agreed on without going into the reason or the lie, does not preside there. It is only the truth that is shocking, says the proverb. I would add, that one must make an exception for overly palpable truths, for which the reproach becomes an act of cowardice for the one who does it. To say to someone who has only one eye “go away, one-eyed man! would make everyone shrug their shoulders, even the one whom we would think to insult. To say to an honest young man: “your brother was hanged for theft”, would amountto the same thing; he has no need to fight. If he follows inthe footsteps of his brother, what honest man would want to dishonor himself by fighting with him? It is with the gallows that he will measure himself. We should no longer

66 (G): The Ancients, who respected mores, also revered honest women, to the point of not representing them on the comic stage. They did not blush at all about a natural need, and contagion being then unknown at the temple of Venus, they went openly to a courtesan, as one would go to an apothecary. But we, who are always confusing good and evil, we bravely seduce our friend’s wife, and we blush, like children, at appearing at the house of a Lais.

respond to the absurd pretentions of a vile man. If the brother or the lover of a prostitute wanted to defend her honor, we would laugh in his face; if he takes offense, one should deliver his sister or his mistress to the police, in order to prove to him that he is coward. In going to the other extreme, we will say that untruths affect us even less. If they called me usurer, I would laugh. If they said to a man of letters that he is a swindler; “yes”, he would say coldly, “I sometimes take some very good ideas from the ancients.” But if one addressed the same words to a loan-shark, a gambler, they would tell you, pistol in their mouths, that you are an insolent impostor. We would not be wrong to think, and this judgment would favor mores, that those who fight each other, almost never dare to say the true reason; this is why the man of letters, the father of the family apologize in a newspaper, and that the libertine,the seducer, the gambler, the loan-shark explain themselves in the Bois de Boulogne. Nevertheless, these gentlemen thinkthat we are coward, and that they are the brave ones. When ideas and mores have been reversed to such an extent that all that is needed is audacity and familiarity with arms to dare all, we understand that society is no more than a labyrinth where the august truth is misunderstood; it is then that the sage searches for it at the bottom of the well. But let us address the matter. What is it, in general,to insult a man? It is to reproach him for what he pretends to have, and does not possess at all. It is to attack his disappointed amour-propre; then, it is truly to forget him. For example, everyone loves life, it is the first of the truths; everyone is persuaded of this, from the cradle; our least access of colic proves it to us. Ah! To say ironicallyto a man that he loves life too much, that he shivers at theidea of losing it, finally, that he is a poltroon through love of his existence; he will fight, he will want to prove to you that you have lost, and he lies to himself in order to convince you of it. What delirium – to fight over a merited reproach and one for which we accuse ourselves in secret! This is an unjust action, unless the censor has gonepast the limits of decorum. Is it possible to swear to

silence all the witness of a bad action? Are you in the right to slit one’s throat in order to force the others to silence? What does it matter, moreover, if they are silent before you, if everyone is whispering that which you do not want to hear. It is thus adding crime to crime to slit the throat of one you have offended through your reprehensible mores. O, how important it is to man to have recourse to the truth! For the more he is enveloped by prejudices and false principles, the more he feels the need to support his evil cause. It is then that he most boldly endangers his life, or that he gives death to his peer; it is then that hefalls into all the possible distractions in order to maintain his lying opinion. Humiliating persiflage, the mostcowardly weapon that a man can use, is that much more dangerous, more provocative, in that it leaves a wide-open field for overwhelming doubts of all kinds; an explanation then becomes indispensable. I was once the target of cruel persiflage during an entire dinner. They ridiculed my littlevoice, my little chest; if I wanted to eat this dish, I would be overheated; if I wanted to drink this wine, it would be too stimulating to my imagination…during my entire life I had never suffered so much from the insolence of a man that I loved, and who had always felt the same way67 . What, then, had I done to deserve this treatment? During theevening I had sung several pieces of my music, and a lady, whose jealous lover he was, had applauded me too much. When the dinner was over, I went home, after having told the man:I will see you tomorrow at 8 AM. I will be there, he told me. I slept little; finally the day dawned, I took my épée, and I said to the young artist with whom I was sharing an apartment68 : if I don’t come back, you will sell my effectsand my piano, for which you send the proceeds to Liége, to my mother. He wanted to go with me, I refused, telling him that excuses on the part of the man who had insulted me the evening before would probably exempt me from fighting. In fact, when he saw me appear, he embraced me, weeping; we 67 (G): This man is no more, which is why I allow myself to report this fact. 68 (G): I was then beginning my career in the theater.

breakfasted; he took me to his lady’s house, with whom I hadbeen reason to make up; she asked me to sing her a piece which, she said, had been rolling about in her imagination all night; no, madame, I said, I will punish your charming coquetry by disobeying you. What a bad man you are! she saidto her lover.

If, after my departure from her house, the reconciliation had not taken place, I would perhaps have killed my friend at this period, or I would have been killedmyself. O women! Women! If you were lost in public opinion when you put arms in the hand of the senseless man, you would be more reserved. I hear myself saying: you see, however, that it is certainly necessary, in spite of oneself, to fight sometimes! Yes, I agree; but also I am only speaking here to complain against this necessity, against this destructive abuse. I do not deny that one can be insulted, that one can fight despite the rigorous prohibition by the laws; but that the man should be lost without recourse if he does justice himself through the pathof arms; that one dares to say publicly: Here is the man whostill wants my life after having failed me; that the woman, as I have said, should be dishonored when we fight for her; and soon (for men always calculate according to their most dear interests), soon opinion will change, she will bow discretely to necessity, will favor us, will protect us rather than harming us.

But, once again, in the armies, is it not necessary to maintain this warlike ardor, this salutary point of honor? Yes, among our Germans, who grope after reason, and almost always take it from the wrong side, who used to go with thrust and cut like starlings; but the military spirit has changed; already there is much less fighting in our republican armies; as at Sparta and Rome, the blood of citizens belongs to the fatherland, and to spill it for individual interests is to be a coward. The republican spirit is sublime in our armies; our successes attest to this; but the contagion is in Paris. The Republic, this

immense empire, this grand body, was purged at its extremities, and has made the poison flow back to its center. Extirpate it, legislators! Probe, burn the wound. Unity is written at the gate of your temples; write truth on the gates of this immense city, truth, on the columns which will adorn your public places! You know it, you feel it as we do. War on the lie, in whatever form it may appear: our only refuge is in truth.

I know that man’s amour-propre drives him unceasingly to domination; I sense all that one can say in favor of thisforced politeness, of this active, reciprocal and general surveillance which we all exercise on each other, and where the fear of compromising oneself, of fighting, enters for something. What should we become at spectacles, on promenades, if it is allowed for each of us to push rudely, to tread on someone’s foot with impunity? This is specious.Nevertheless, let us remark that these sort of insults are almost always premeditated insults. One said, I suppose thatsuch a man is a scoundrel, and one said the truth; beyond that there can be no explanation; he is convinced in advance. What does he do? He treads on the foot of his accuser, and forces him to fight. I have answered in advancethat one never fights with a scoundrel, one denounces him; and if scoundrels want to fight among themselves, so much the better if they murder each other clandestinely, that is so many ferocious beasts that they purge from the earth. I imagine that, in the crowd, someone thoughtlessly steps on the foot of a man that he does not know at all69: he is allowed, I think, to cry out, even to swear if he has gout; if the man, does this formally, soon ten honest men will make him blush. Why do honest folk keep quiet, when they see brainless young people provoking each other? Because they fear getting involved, to take the side of one of them.If insults, false bravura, provocation to murder were not,

69 (G): La Mothe was blind. In a crowd he trod on the foot of a man who responded with a slap. “You will be quite annoyed, monsieur”, La Mothe said to him sweetly, “when you learn that I am blind.”

most often, the clandestine tool of vile souls, they would interpose their respectable authority.

Let us look at England; duels are rare there, and they would be even more so without the proximity and the influence of French mores. The English fight each other, butit is with fisticuffs. Woe to one who would employ a weapon against the attack of a porter, he would be crushed by the people. If, through their laws and custom, England had not strictly repressed duels, the foggy climate of this people, its too-substantial nourishment, its too-thick beverages would blacken its imagination and its amour-propre to such adegree that, soon, through murder, the British Isles would be desert islands. Gracious urbanity will always be more customary among the French than among other peoples; their gay and loving characters invites them to this. It would be frightful, a dishonor for such a nation, for iron, always ready to leave it sheath, to constrain it to be polite.

True politeness consists much more in knowing how to besilent than in being officious, reverential. In general, letus, as little as possible, set ourselves up as mentors, men do not want to be reproved separately; we must speak to all,so that each individual hears and understands his part of the lesson.70 Excepting those whom nature has subjected to us, I know no one who deserves a particular censure, unless he asks for it. Finally, I prefer frankness without affectation, the coarse sophisticate, to the mannered man who will tell me that, without the delicious lie, delicious politeness, the false caresses, the inverted expressions that we all send to each other, we could not live agreeably in society.

NOTE FOR THE ELEVENTH CHAPTER.(1) I saw a young man who, after fighting with and killing

his friend, came, upon leaving the field of battle, to the 70 (G): After a sermon where Louis XIV had been too openly indicated, he said

to the preacher: “I certainly want to take my part of a sermon, but I don’t wantto be made the sermon.”

house where I was; there he played a flute sonata, and was that day the particular idol of the ladies, who were fighting over him.

Chapter 12. Prejudice needing to be established; means to this end.

We will never persuade reasonable folk, that lying while bravely insisting that one has not lied is a prejudicethat can merit the title of point d'honneur. It is through an intolerable reversal of the principles of morality that thisabuse has been introduced into society. One lies because oneknows how to fight; one fights to support a lie, and one calls the one who will do neither one nor the other a scurvyknave. These are fallacious prejudices, as are almost all such.

It is with another point of honor that we will know concern ourselves. This is as true, and would be as favorable to mores, as the first is false, and destructive of all morality: it is truth that we want to establish as a fundamental principle, a salutary prejudice among men. In opposing an honorable prejudice to one which was often as suspect as it was condemnable, although it seem to only havehonor as its guide; in noting how the latter came to be; in following the imperious march that it had until gaining swayover the will of men, and reigning despotically over them while deceiving them; in putting, finally, one in the place of the other, in grafting, so to speak, a delectable fruit onto the tree which only produced bitter fruits, we can, it seems to me, establish a prejudice favorable to more, in thesame way that the false prejudice was itself established. Inorder to arrive at the good, I sense that it is humiliating;for virtue to borrow the path that evil has followed; but what does it matter the means that we make use of, given that we arrive at the respectable goal that animates us. It is here that, without vanity, it is permitted to desire a superior talent, which can never be as much as the subject we are treating. In seeking to develop this important matter, one reflection still halts me, and forces me to blush. Is it in fact believable that one must have recourse to reasoning in order to turn man away from a crime that he abhors! Simply the words: you have lied cause him to shiver with honor; how is it then possible that he is determined to

lie in a thousand ways, since he cannot bear for them to accuse him of bad faith? Why is blood required to wash away the stain printed by this odious expression? But all is arranged, all is agreed upon among men; it is through vile subterfuges that think that they can escape the lie. Under penalty of cowardice, they do not suffer a formal denial; but with the exception of the verified scoundrel, who rejects even the shadow of suspicion, it is agreed, among so-called decent folk, that with honest terms, one can proveto someone that he is very dishonest. In listing for him theenumeration of the proofs which demonstrate his lie, it is sufficient to subtract from the explanation the liveliest ofthe technical words about which we have agreed to be alarmed, and honor is saved. Can one ask for a stronger proof that we are more attached to words than to things themselves? That the more a people is demoralized, the more susceptible and ticklish it is regarding the supposed point of honor? I have often seen a good and honest man mocked to his face; he smiled at the insults directed at him, thinkingthat it was a general pleasantry, and his candor excited my tender feelings. The scoundrel or liar, on the contrary, blushes, halts you with a imperative word, and this word means: there will be blood, if you continue to talk about me.

Lying periodically in a newspaper is still something permitted, if you add: they say. However, the lying fact being read the same day by ten thousand people who all repeat they say, has no need of other proofs, since everyone says that which no one reproves. The accused, you will say, can defend himself publicly, yes; but three they says, at different times, on the account of an innocent man, render him at the least suspect, and this is what the aggressor wanted. One can even, with an adroit lie, put oneself under the shelter of the laws. This is what an English poet did, who exposed the ridiculousness of a man, his compatriot and contemporary on the stage; each spectator recognized him, named him, and the author was going infallibly to lose the case that the satirized man had brought to court, when, at the request of the poet, a second person likewise attacked

him in court, in claiming that it was he who had been put onthe stage. Then the author told the two plaintiffs to discuss the matter among themselves, so that he would know what he would have to do, and the case remained suspended indefinitely.

We will not seek to take from man the ruses that are asnatural to him as they are to the rest of the animals, and which he uses to escape the punishment that he deserves for his versatilities, his thoughtlessness, his foolishness and his crimes; it is a right of nature to reject even the evilsthat we have deserved; no hand can oppose itself to the efforts of suffering nature. But we do not remain less persuaded of the degradation which covers the one who commits an action, or who wants to maintain a procedure, forwhich he knows the falsity in advance. The man who says to himself: if I am accused of falsity, I still have these means available to avoid conviction, is guilty before having consummated the lie for which he can, in the eyes of others, escape through his ruse. Except for subjects of little consequence where pleasantry permits equivocation, let the truth be for us an act of rigor. We have laughed enough at spirited and misplaced sarcasms – let us scorn them at present. Either I am greatly deceived, or the times are arriving where we willno longer suffer, either in councils or tribunals, for the austere truth to travestied as a strumpet from a area of prostitution. I know that, in order to prevent the progress of vice, ridicule is a terrible weapon, and I am far from wanting to blunt it. Let us laugh, let us entertain ourselves: joy favors the mores that ennui makes depraved; but, in the name of God and the Truth, let us make war on cunning lying when it wants to impose on us, and replace reason. No matter the revered place where it takes charge; no matter that it may be majestic, eloquent, full of emphasis, in the pulpit, in the courts, at the bar: let us vigorously reject every kind of lie, once the certainty of apure conscience alerts us to their presence71. Let us use

71 (G): See the chapter “On the dangers of eloquence.”

honor itself to destroy the false point of honor; let us puttruth, the first basis of education, in its place, truth, which the experience of time has caused us to inherit.

In the preceding chapter we have shown many criminal errors are produced by the false prejudice of honor; we haveshown that, except for true courage, which cause us to bravedanger for the defense of fatherland and of virtues, what wecall a brave man is nothing more than an assassin who says: I want it or I slaughter; we have also shown that prejudice which forces us to appear braves, or to become brave, in effect, though force of will and through making efforts to be brave, is nothing other, most often, than a violation nature, an impious replacement of virtues. Let us say it in one word: this is the ancient law of the strongest, which wants to revive and reign in policed societies, as it formerly reigned in the forests. It is simply that cunning has replaced blows, and we give to murders the specious nameof point d'honneur. But if it is true, as we presume, that we have arrived at the refinement of all the vices, that we have, more or less, run through all human knowledge without being better, but more dissimulated; if it is true that we have groped through all governments, all religions; if it istrue that we have been subjugated by all the prejudices, oneafter another; the times have perhaps arrived (for the extremities meet in the moral as in the physical) were we will be forced to begin once more the circle of the truths and the virtues, not through ignorance as we did in the childhood of the world, but war-weary, through disgust with error, because we are more educated, and because we better know the tactics of good and evil; finally, because our evils have made us wise, and force us to it.

I ask whether today it is possible to deceive anyone atall without losing oneself sooner or later? The worker without work, the artist without occupation, the merchant without business, the unsuccessful troublemaker, the magistrate without employment, the king without diadem, are as many victims of their inept lies, whether in their

talents or their conduct. I further ask whether, in everything, we do not recognize, through certain marks, those who wish to impose, and those walk in the narrow road?One speaks unendingly of his probity, and his pockets are filled with pistols for those who would dare to doubt him. The other boasts of his talents, which we do not know, in denigrating those of skilled folk. If he publishes some production, he puts proudly at the top: By the author of such and such a work, which we have never heard of. Among such men there are liars, or at least imbeciles; their efforts to appear that which they are not show what they in fact are. On the contrary, the man of probity does not boast; the scholar, the skilled artist tranquilly show theirworks, and let themselves by judged. But, take care, men of little value! The honest man recognizes the scoundrel, the skilled artists recognizes the ignorant man simply by the way in which you judge him.

How have we come to put a lying prejudice in the place of the truth? In abusing the ignorance of the people; in imposing on him through the apparatus of arms, riches, grandeur, and religions. Is it the weak in spirit that we wished to deceive? No, it was enough to want them to be dupes. It is the people of good sense, and even the people of spirit upon whom we wished to impose; they alone deservedto be led by the nose. In conscience, is this thing still possible today when everyone has more or less general knowledge of everything, and when all these things are studied deeply by those for whom they are their particular estate? Wanting to deceive overmuch is to be a dupe; wantingto deceive without being a dupe oneself is to be an imbecile, a fool; to pretend to feelings of esteem which areonly due to superior talents and virtues is to be a sot; they alone command respect without requiring it, and withouttroubling order and equality. In fact, if I am the admirer of this man, the worship of that woman, I do not trouble themoral order at all, since my sentiments are voluntary; I do not degrade myself at all, I only conditionally expose the object that I revere to taking advantage of my admiration;

if it prevails, if it abuses it, it destroys the sentiments that it had inspired in me, and everything goes back in order.

To the unhappiness of humanity, it seems that the abuseof everything is almost inevitable, both in the moral and inthe physical; and it is excess or abuse that must be carefully avoided in order to remain in the ways of wisdom. Each thing has its childhood, its period of splendor, and its old age; we enjoy in one, we abuse in the other, and then on regrets. If only youth knew, if only old age could, the proverbsays! Yes, it is only through the aid of experience that we cease to abuse things; it is because we have observed them closely and from all their facts, because we have been deceived and corrected a hundred times, that we become wise and that we enjoy in moderation. In order to apply this to our subject, which is but one, and everywhere the same, I will say that it is through abuse that the false prejudice of honor is introduced so generally into consciences, and that it is only introduced there under the auspices and appearances of the truth. The honest man was able to say to himself: I will not at all suffer an idiot when he offends my virtue, my probity, my honor. Could he have thought otherwise? No, certainly; he could not have said to himself:I will not suffer an idiot, although he reproaches me for myerrors, my lies, and my crimes. But, the prejudice of honor once adopted; loyalty being reputed the most important appanage of man; the ancient orders of Masonry, of chivalry also coming to the support of this prejudice; then the scoundrels said: “Let us borrow the formulas, all the external appearances of this respectable doctrine, and let us use them against timid and debonair men. Let the man who is as honest as he is brave be himself obliged to fight and endanger his life at every moment, if he wishes to resist us. Let us say that honor consists in knowing how to fight; that every man who does not fight at the first insulting provocation, just or not, is a coward; let us fight bravely after having stolen the wallet of the imbecile seated next to us on the green carpet; after having seduced, dishonored

the honest daughter, let us fight with her father or her brother, who have the audacity to provoke us and insult us; let us fight while swindling, at the bourse, the effects of this credulous man; let us fight while despoiling the estimable artist of the fruits of his talent….let us be the worthy emulators of Alexander, let us pillage, steal, conquer, lay waste, and let our épée be always ready to buryitself in the heart of the first man who will dare to accuseus, or even suspect us, of brigandage.” And we would be evenlonger under the domination of these notable knaves! And theworld which knows them, points at them, whispers in your ear: He is a great scoundrel; beware of having the least business affair with him! will not rise en masse a second time against their turpitudes, as it rose against those of despotism! Why whisper in your ear that these are scoundrels? Do you fear that they have power over honest folk? Their number is much small, you can be sure; ---but we fear them like the wolves in the forests. – Well then! we have vanquished those controlled armies, and we would dread a few brigands whose only weapons are lying and daring! Men of good, let us join together; sublime nation, prolong your revolution further, it is not at all complete; make war on the cunning lies of dishonest men, as you have on the proud lie: it is time for one prejudice to replace the other; it is time for man to belost, to be shunned by the public voice, if he outrages the truth. The lying canaille must be subjugated by the absolutedomain of the noble prejudice that we are instituting, and which requires that man think that which he says. It is truly this prejudice to which we should give the sacred nameof point of honor, without which the world will remain in the ancient ignorance from which general education is ready to pull it forever. Yes, forever! One no longer renounces such a precious good, once one has felt its price. A thousand demi-discoveries dazzle men; one great truth is manifested and makes all the approximate systems that had preceded it disappear, because it includes all. Likewise, universal morality is in truth respected by all people of good; let us dare to say: This man has lied; here are ten men of good who attest to it, and we are saved.

Let us manifest our good qualities, I agree; but if we want to be esteemed, let us admit in good faith to our weaknesses, we dissemble them in vain. General love of sincerity, I invoke you! And soon it will no longer be allowed for brigands to assassinate us in the name of the honor that they profane. Once again, let us join against them, let us point them out, let us wage ware on them to thedeath, they are disarmed, they are no longer to be dreaded, the false prejudice of honor is abolished, the truth triumphs!

Chapter 13.Recapitulation and continuation of the preceding chapter.

In order to abolish all at once the most baleful prejudice, through establishing on its rubble one which would better favor mores, some means more material than the reasoning we have just employed would be necessary. In recapitulating what we have said, we should see that abolishing the false prejudice of honor is to establish the salutary prejudice of true honor; that the price of truth, which we have proposed instituting, is the indestructible root of the tree of life which we would like to acclimate among us. But two generations, our own, and that which already follows close behind us, can still pass by in the shadows. Let us seek, then, a remedy which is as quick to act as the urgency of our situation demands. Never has France had so much need to take a decisive attitude in its mores; in a few years, there will be no more time. It is in the natural interstice left for us between the old and the new regime that it is indispensable to reject the old abuses, and to speak about corrective measures. It is this, which, as weak as I am, has caused me to take up my pen to sketch out such a noble subject.

In supposing, as we think we have shown, that the laws have all the force needed to suppress the mania for duels, then, certainly, the scoundrel and the liar (who are one andthe same), lose the privilege of escaping their turpitudes through the use of arms, which is, if one thinks over it well, their only resource. If the government should anathematize all the swordsmen, then natural the galant women are lost in public opinion, if their lovers fight overthem with épée in hand; but they would be able to forbid them to fight. Some hunted, desperate lovers would infringe the laws, but in general they would act with some prudence, if provocation to combat makes it difficult to form other galant liaisons. In a word, the obstacle is overcome, the process of the public matter is won on this point, if the pretty woman is obliged to say to her new worshiper: You were

beaten for such and such a woman, I cannot have a liaison with you without losing my reputation. Do we think that it was the opposite under the old regime, and that perhaps this abuse still exists today? That a woman was in vogue, when, through bloody combat, we fought over her. I said one day to a pretty actress, that she was going to be the cause of a suicide, ifshe was not more prudent in how she behaved towards her abandoned lover; “very true”, she told me with an air of jubilation.

If, as we have also said, for gambling debts contractedwithout receipt, it is absolutely forbidden to fight; if, finally, for a bloody affront, such as a slap72, justice defends the oppressed against the aggressor 73; it is morally sure that duels will become very rare, and that the antique prejudice of combats, for all the cause relating to love affairs, gambling, and a thousand points of false honor, will be quickly extinguished. And what means will remain for scoundrels, for liars, once they themselves cannot no longer mete out justice? Once they can no longer, I repeat once more, make dupes with pistol in hand? They will still have, you will say, the hypocritical trumperies that they will use more than ever. We will denounce them, their reputations will be lost, but what will it matter to them! I answer that it matters more than we think to be ableto maintain a civil existence that they can no longer give themselves through force of arms. Do we know the scoundrels today? Do we at least suspect them? - Certainly. – will theynot be even more boldly known when they are demolished by opinion, when they will no longer have arms at their waist? Certainly even more. – Well, I dare to say that once duels, bravado and insolence are repressed, once the people of goodwill dare, without compromising themselves, to unveil the

72 (G): Here, as one sees, I respect the opinion, which establishes a difference between a blow with fist, or with open hand. 73 (G): We know that the Emperor Joseph II, having learned that an officer had received a slap from another officer, had them appear before him; that he kissedthe cheek which had been slapped, while granting a higher rank to the officer who had been offended; and that he banished the other from his States, after having had him slapped by the executioner.

horrors of the wicked, once they are withered by a generallyestablished prejudice; then, I dare to state, they will be banned from private company; they will be seen with scorn inthe assemblies of the people; they will not be able to arrive at any honorable position, and even less will they beentrusted with public funds; finally, no longer being able to be immoral and clandestine scoundrels, having no longer apolitical existence under the safeguard of false prejudices,they will decide to make themselves openly honest people. When there are no longer two sides to take, when one is sureof being discovered, when cunning and brigandage can producing nothing for their authors but dishonor, flight, orthe scaffold, then they make a decision; man becomes a hermit in order to live quietly, to escape his remorse, and the blistering regards of society that rejects him; it will be much easier, in renouncing any devious path, as having become impracticable, to amass his fortune honestly, and to enjoy it amidst his permitted pleasures. A remarkable changehas already taken place in our mores since the revolution; let us observe in fact that the great scoundrels who were able to join intrepidity of vice with spirit of intrigue areno longer dreaded; they cause us horror; they rejected from all the places that they formerly occupied, now that they are no longer in style and do not have great lords to support them.

Will it be necessary to defend houses of gambling and of libertinage? No, but they must be overseen. The governorsof hot countries, where passions are vehement, prudently leave some escape valves for the fiery transports of the burning men of their climates. During the time in which I was in Rome, the Pope paid officers to oversee the health ofthe public women; gambling is permitted, but overseen in various cities in Italy. Now that education has reduced, in the North, the prejudices of religious bigotry to their proper value, we can treat each other as men; it is time to give to all the enjoyments that the priests and the grandeeshad appropriated for themselves. Robespierre wanted to make Paris a great monastery, since he wanted to rule over it; when one slaughters, it is always in the name of some

imposing power, such as God or Liberty. Let us let men enjoythemselves without religious hypocrisy; it is thus that the Greeks captivated men and inspire them with a hot love of the fatherland. Let us leave extinguishers for the violent passions, that is, amour-propre, passion for women, and the hope of enriching oneself; to oversee men in this too closely is to want them to lie, deceive, and become as many hypocrites. Men! Enjoy, be happy, but decisive like the Greeks and the early romans; show yourselves as you are; have enough pride to say: Here I am with my qualities and my defects; but whatever I may be, I am not a cheat, I deceive no one, and do not expect to be anyone’s dupe. Yes, I embrace with good heart he who will say to me: “I love women passionately, I can barely resist with my probity, my honor crying out to me! ‘This is the daughter of a brave man whom I will dishonor’”. I embrace this frank and loyal man, and I say to him: “Courage, my friend! One more day of patience and probity, you will find the pretty wife who desires you and waits for you with open arms.” I even honor him who will frankly say: “My parents were bankers, merchants; they gave me a love of money which I can scarcely repress. I feel some remorse in doing what everyone does; in monopolizing the vessel which arrives in our port, I am the sole possessor of a food of the first necessity of which trade is denuded at the moment; in a month I will triple the price, I will earn a million, this profit is assured.” . The more assured it is, I will say tohim, the more the commercial operation that you wish to do is scarcely delicate; buy the cargo of the vessel, resell it, since society needs it; only earn one hundred thousand francs, and think that men will pay you the rest in respect,which is worth gold. Everyone knows and will know the good that you will do; it is allowed to be virtuous through amour-propre. Why do we work so hard to be rich – is it in order to eat? Nourishment, even abundant nourishment, is never lacking for people of a certain estate. Is it in orderto have more than the necessary? A fine house, a carriage, atrain? Is it to obtain respect, then? Ah well! the first, the best of all, is that given by exact probity, it is that which you will deserve and obtain from your peers by earning

one hundred thousand franks. If I must repeat myself, I willsay this every day: honor to our ancients, I mean, to the Greeks and the Romans, who highly avowed their talents, their qualities, their defects, their passions, and who weremediocre in nothing, not even the sages and philosophers, who were often outrageous and ridiculous, but always true. It is through sincerity that we will become what they were, for I attribute the aplomb that they possessed in everythingas much to their education, as to their particular climate. For them, truth was that which it will always be, the final result of education. Their knowledge was not as general as ours; but, certainly, the superior men whose immense reputation has been passed down to us attest to their high wisdom in almost all the arts and all the sciences; and other peoples had, before them, adepts and initiates whose works will still for a long time be the object of our restless curiosity. Our knowledge acquired according to these ancient models, is, I think, in many respects, superior to that which they possessed before us; but, as we have already insinuated, a false shame, a factitious veneer accompany all our actions. The truths that we announce in our mores are timid; our virtues limp; even our lies are foolish; in nothing are we sufficiently pronounced, and it is in this that we should carefully correct ourselves. Formerly (I mean, under the ancien régime) the great were not at all great, they were prepared dolls; the magistrate were little masters; the scholars separated themselves from the artists with the use of seigneur, they would have blushed to teach in a college once they could be installed in an academic chair; the artists pretended to be amateurs; honest girls were closed way in convents; their mothers distance themselves from them in order to be relieved of looking after their upbringing, and so as not to have alwaysbefore them the afflicting spectacle of the budding rose; the women at court were without mores; the galant lades imitated the women at court… it was practically only the street-corner Savoyards and the prostitutes who really wanted to be what they were; and all these platitudes stemmed from the nullity and the false shine of the people

of court, whom everyone had the weakness of imitating. Othertimes will bring other mores, and this change should interest the attention of all the people of good.

Chap. 14. On the vices and immoralities that the new order of things can destroy.

It is through opposing the abuses and vices of servitude with the frankness and determination that are naturally given by the energetic and proud sentiments of political liberty that we are better able to clarify the frivolity of the former and the loyalty of the latter.

We have sketched out French mores under the three regimes which preceded the revolution; then more than ever galant women disposed of everything; from the mistress of the king to that of the lowest clerk, galanterie was almost the only road which led to fortune; and as the wives of those with position enjoyed little favor with their libertine husbands, each one of them made herself powerful through her charms. Will we act differently in the future? Will women ever cease being a stumbling block for the wise? –It seems that, in republics, their dominion, although very powerful, has a less direct influence on mores. Formerly, having pure mores was to be censuring those of the master. Today, there no longer being an absolute chief who captivates and drags opinion behind him, we will no longer see a thousand henchmen at the court take mistresses in order to imitate, to please the man upon whom they are dependent. Being freer, we will be less imitative. Dependence leads to imitation, as freedom leads to originality. With regard to the weaknesses of love, we will probably act like other peoples who love women as women, andless as dominatrices of affairs of State.

The most notorious vices of the old regime, the libertinage and the swindling of the big cities, the nasty gossip that reigned in the small cities, the sordid miserliness of the countryside, not to mention the lying which unfailingly accompanied these everywhere under a

thousand different faces, where the well-known scourges thatdesolated France. With regard to the first point, today as then, to seduce a young woman living under her parental protection, is a punishable crime. The tutors whom we pay, and to whom we entrust her education, are yet more punishable. If they abuse the parents’ trust, the laws, in this case, cannot be too severe, especially when it is a question of amiable talents, who inspire tenderness and love. With regard to women, in general, who solicit seduction through countless attacks of coquetry, this is an inextricable labyrinth for which imagination, in both sexes,carries almost all the load; sometimes satisfied, unendinglydeceived and undeceived, it is the women who run the most risks in this unequal commerce to which they bring more prudence. The belt of Venus is too delicate, too multiplex in its contours, for it to able to be sufficiently warrantedby other laws than those which emanate from the sovereign possessors of this treasure.

The affairs of the State having become, through the revolution, the affairs of the residents of the cities of the departments, it is probable that this always existing concern with interests will protect them from the gossip through which they reciprocally desolated each other in order to avoid the ennui of uniformity; finally, with regardto the avarice of those dwelling in the countryside, it alsohad its primary origin in the monarchical regime. Everyone pretended to be poor, buried his gold in order to escape theinspector, who pressured the peasant for his revenue, and thus punished him for his praiseworthy activity. Less punitive laws, taxes based on the fertility of the lands, will give us rich farmers who will dare to show themselves as they are; who will dare to enjoy without trouble the products of the most estimable of all industries. Let there be no doubt, the mores of Paris and the departments, in general, can only gain through the revolution; it is the factitious man, in any case, that we have combatted and defeated; man should regain and will regain his natural élan; his passions will be more honest, sometimes more terrible; but hypocrisy having fled with fear, men will

march with uncovered faces; evil will be notorious, and easier to repress; virtues, more pronounced, more expansive,will be imitated from age to age. The peasant will no longerbow in order to please the lord of his village; to be in thegood graces of the intendant of the province, the bourgeois of the departmental cities will no longer have to curtsy; tomake their fortunes, the residents of Paris will no longer affect the peculiarities and run-down vices of the court; today these sins against the rights of man cause us horror; it is truth to which we want to pay homage; prejudices woundus as much as we take pleasure in adorning ourselves with them; opinion marches with great strides toward simplicity, and it is only the factitious or weak beings who still long for our former existence

If it were possible for France, for Paris, to be suddenly transformed into a monarchy; if we once again saw there this imposing court, these so-called grandees, adornedwith the ribbons, so proud, or so insolently affable with the bourgeois, the Republic would be, from the next day on, stronger than ever. Beside the ones mentioned above, there are not three cowardly men in Paris who could bear the humiliating sight of the factitious grandeurs that eighteen centuries of errors of this kind had prepared. Today, every citizen already knows that all the positions are available for him or his son, if they are worthy of filling them; we no longer see men provided for a limited time, and who seem to prepare the place that we will occupy some day; no more eternal positions, titles and grandeurs; this unbearable yoke for amour-propre, this extinguisher of every kind of emulation, exists no more; man feels or sees in the future all the dignity of his being, and the reward for his virtues.

We are always tempted to ask by what fatality men couldhave let themselves be deceived to this point; but the strength of some, the weakness of others, unendingly contribute to breaking moral equilibrium; there are, moreover, so many folk who allow themselves to easily be imposed upon by all that surrounds them; it is thus that

little by little prejudices establish themselves, and when nature wants to rebel, it is too late; the oppression has been established; the oppressors have become masters of the opinions of the weak, the law is passed, and the educated man obeys like the others in order to not be refractory.

I am not among the number of those upon whom prejudicesare easily imposed; nature often comes to my aid in order toremove me from their yoke when they wish to weigh upon my reason. Formerly, after having heard pious folk discourse for a long time regarding the spiritual power of the Pope, regarding his infallibility…… I had a dream, singular enoughfor me to report it. Knowing the city of Rome perfectly, where I had lived for a long time, it seemed to me that I was there still, and that an important matter called me to the Holy Father. After having waited some time, they announced his presence; he actually arrived, and what do I see? A decrepit old man, completely naked, he was lame, hunchbacked, gaunt, entirely hideous; his bald head was surmounted by a triple crown; it is thus that he came to me,hobbling along. Is this man here, I said to myself, the one for whom the cannon is fired, before whom all knees bow, andfrom whose hand emanate the bolts of excommunication which make all Christians tremble? I want to speak to him, I do not know about what; he raises his head to look at me, I burst out laughing, and I ran off as fast as I could.

It is certainly to the sentiments of republicanism, which I have imbibed since my childhood, that I owe my love of liberty and horror of slavery. The welcome that I received for the old court, my natural taste for noble and easy manners, nothing was able to bend my spirit to other subjections beyond those of reason. I say it frankly, I had conceived a high esteem for the probity of the last king; all his actions, prior to the revolution, had seemed frank and honest to me; he had rewarded the fine arts, although hedid not love them. In signing the document for the pension that he granted me, he said: I sign with pleasure when I am rewarding talents, and especially probity. The day of his death, I honor myself in saying it, I was in despair at

seeing the death of a weak but honest man, who had been dragged by his court into the anti-popular party. The queen,his spouse, loved my talents for a long time: as beneficent as one could be when she was happy; but young, weak, flight,with a bad entourage, she was disgusted by everything, because she did not know how to deal with anything. They said that the great Racine wept on the day that Louis XIV passed close by him without looking at him; I had more courage; after eight years of assiduity, I left the presenceof the queen at the first sign of satiety that she displayedfor my music. She had me summoned, and reproached me for leaving (1); I still had the courage to tell her that as I myself was fatigued by my music, she must have had enough ofit, and I praised the Italian players, whom she was protecting at the time. – You certainly know better than I do what I like, she told me. ---She saw that I had divined her feelings, and retained feelings of benevolence from afar forme, which soon would have been changed into distaste, had I been obstinate in wanting to please her. But, in loving the grandees who love us, are we obliged to love their caste, and all the absurdities that constitute it? No. I loved all the nobles who often were amiable, and sometimes estimable; I even pardoned them some original sins, the fruits of theireducation; but I could never tolerate their proud sufficiency based on false prejudices. One can, without injustice, hate a factitious nobility, while loving, while esteeming the noble and honest man; we were, moreover, obliged to have recourse to the noble caste, since it was inpossession of all things. The court decided everything; the court was France; it was through its influence that one entered the academy; its support was the seal for all genresof success, and it was only through the passage of time thatthe nation approved or disapproved the judgments of the court. We thus sought out its favors as an indispensable initiative for arriving at celebrity or fortune. Rousseau had his Devin du Village performed there, had the customary reward74, and arrived without delays and without solicitations at the theaters of Paris. 74(G): It was a sum of 1200 livres.

Voltaire caressed the mistresses of the kings, and was made Count of Fernay; Buffon was made Count of Buffon; a favorable wind carried the vessel of the nobility to port, they were ranked on their side, and both one and the other, as well as their disciples, hated the grandees whom they flattered in order to be protected by them (2). There certainly was inconsequence in this behavior, but any other way would have been more than imprudent. The court allowed only Jean-Jacques to be a new Diogenes; it laughed at his stoicism while admiring his writings, which it thought to bewritten for another world; but it would have instantly struck down all of literature, if it had manifested the sameopinions as Rousseau. Finally, the philosophers gave in, in appearance, to the weaknesses of the court, which they unendingly ridiculed and compressed with precaution. It is thus that they slowly mined the great colossus of feudalism and slavery, which came to suddenly collapse. You formerly great, do not blame them! The progresses of reason were no more to be avoided than those of the ocean tides, which slowly advance and which undermine the continent on one side, while returning the same part on the other. May the reason of mean maintain them in the just middle, in the equilibrium of the passions, something quite difficult! Let us love, let us cherish the truth in everything, let us makewar on prejudices, on the lies which are no longer in season, and let us pass over this earth as tranquilly as possible, without baseness and without degradation, during the few days that are allotted to us by nature and by the radiant sun which reappears each morning in order to reanimate us and take with him a few parcels of our existence. Finally, I repeat it once more, and I will say itin every possible way, it is necessary for men to be persuaded that they cannot be honest folk, if they do not begin by being so in their own eyes; that the best-contrivedlie is only a frail fabric with which they believe in vain to cover themselves; that the time in which the lie remains undiscovered is only a moment in the life of the liar; and that, finally, the lie, by which men were duped for a long time, is treated by them, when it is discovered, like the

wild beast who, after having committed murder and mayhem, has taken refuge deep in the forest: all conspire to its ruin. But the tree of lies has infinite branches whose immense extent covers the surface of the glove with its deceptive shadow; man, always worried, sighs for the happiness that always escapes him. Foolish man, see your error! What you seek is in the truth; the serenity of your days, that of your life is entirely in its divine lights75.

It is time to go into more detail regarding the variousclasses, the various estates of men living in society. Let us show their hereditary absurdities, the falsity of the prejudices inherent in these; above all, let us always put the good next to the ill, that is to say, the reform next tothe ancient abuse, and let us announce boldly, that if todaywe are approved by sensible folk, soon a sweet revolution inmores joining the political revolution, will give to the peoples that aplomb in behavior, that serenity of conscience, that well-being that stems from a strong and pure soul, which the men of the eighteenth century have deserved through their immense labors in all branches of education.. With which estate shall we begin? We have already been concerned with the people, and the education that is appropriate for it; it is to the people in particular that this work is consecrated. Let us show it know that one of its most ancient errors was that of elevating to the first rank the man who often should have remained in the last class of citizens. How could this abusehave arisen, you may want to ask? Here is how.

NOTES FOR THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER

75 (G): In its holy fictions, Religion seems to believe that the trunk of this impious tree is Satan himself, cast down by the Being of beings; that this prince of the rebel angels, this spirit of insurrection and pride was chased from the heavens and cast into hell; and that, nevertheless, from his immortal though filthy substance the tree of lies was born, whose fruit caused the disobedience of the first man and the unhappiness of future race.

(1) My taste for study, my natural estrangement from factitious mores, cause me to refuse the leading places at court in relation to music. That of master of the children of France, of superintendent of the music of the King, the ribbon of St. Michael, which was offered to me twice – nothing could tempt me. However, the last Queen loved my music over seven or eight years, and wanted me to attend herconcerts and the spectacles of the court each time that theyperformed my works there. Shortly before the revolution, at the death of Sacchini, I obtained his pension of 6,000 livres, which I only touched once, since it was suppressed with all the pensions of the State, which came to exorbitantsums. I owe it to the truth to say that the Republic, without my requesting it, retained a pension for me of 2400 livres, which, upon the re-establishment of finances, will be my most certain income. (2) Here is what some people of letters report. One of

them, walking in the Tuileries with Voltaire, said to him: “What is it? Why this careworn air when everything is going well for you?” “It is the mania of the great which torments me”, he replied. Voltaire, perhaps, had just met a duke, a prince, who had said to him, with agility, “Good morning, mydear Arouet.” Who knows if it was not on that very day that Voltaire swore to avenge himself on the great by overturningthe altars of superstition?

Chapter 15. On princes and courtiers.

A man extraordinary for his virtues, his talents, and the strength of his character, such as nature causes to be born sometimes, showed himself worth to command other men; with a unanimous voice the peoples seated him upon a throne,saying to him: “You are our father, command us, we want to obey you76, and they were happy. After the death of the first king, one hundred hypocrites feigned the same virtues,were also declared kings, and the peoples were unhappy. Another time, many, pretending to the same crown, fomented parties among the people; there were civil wars, and the people was yet more unhappy. Finally, a just king ruled oncemore, the peoples resolved to make the crown pass from father to son, for as long as his line should last, and too often they crowned imbecility; then they were unhappier thanthey had ever been. Crowned vice or ignorance leads to all the other evils. The ignorant monarch, not knowing how to choose his ministers himself, has them presented to him through intrigue; and the virtuous man, who never carries out intrigue himself, remains lost in the crowd. If the prince is vicious, it is even worse: he does not refrain from surrounding himself with men who resemble him. Living, all of them, above the laws, without restraint, without truehonor, the result of their conduct can only be disastrous for the State. It is in the class of men that prejudice has placed above others that we easily find this false brilliance, this lying complication of hauteur and baseness.It is in the courts that the art of lying is perfected; it is there that it spreads all its sails in order sail as if in the open ocean, without fearing, for the present, any reef. There, truth is more to be feared than the lie; there,

76 (G): Locke makes monarchies follow paternal government of families; but he never takes from the people the right to create and recreate their government, when the majority demands it.

all have but one language, because all have agreed to lie. The first pilot commands, each courtier has a rope, the valets are in the bilge; and “come what may”77 , they say, let us support the prejudices of a chief for which we are the by-products; let us all lie, let us all deceive, and letus be always be capable.”

77 TN: in the original French, “vogue la galère” – let the galley slaves row.

Chapter 16.What it is to be in measure

Fontenelle used to say, in speaking of the regent of France who had become too familiar with him: I repel him with my respect. In fact, familiarity is dangerous with sovereigns. Deceived by their badinage, if we were to respond to this maladroitly, if we were to take the tone, the measure that they give us, we would soon see them return to all their hauteur. They only approach our level in order to remind us to be even smaller. Can we imagine the strange perplexity ofa courtier? From the first prince of the blood to the last valet of the court who approaches his master, whether to act, whether to speak, there is a ladder of etiquette, of manners and tones, that he employs step by step in order to always be correct. Here is his study – this is how he passeshis life. And let us not believe that he dares to form a habit of always speaking in the same way to the same person;no, the measure for yesterday is no longer fitting for today, if this man has not his employs. If the disgraced manhas tact, he will sense, from the first phrase addressed to him by the courtier who still gave him consideration yesterday, he will sense, I say, in a cruel how are you doing, a tone of familiarity, a sound of overwhelming commiseration that he would not have taken before his disgrace.

The educated man, the philosopher who only appreciates merit and not the passing favors of fortune, diversifies less his tones; one could even say that he only has two, that of esteem and that of indulgence. He does not scorn at all, or it is at the final extremity that he decides on this; he knows too well the labyrinth of the passions, of human weaknesses, to not be disposed to pardon.

Measure among Republicans should be frank, severe, but without rudeness; the regime of the equality of conditions, which is the basis of their mores, should give them an

aplomb which the men of other less free government do not have. This tone is felt in England, in Holland, and even in the land of Liège; it is only the poor man who solicits his support in offering this monotonous work, who does attain tothe pride of the republican tone. What nuance, nevertheless,should the Republican observe, when he speaks to the man of the law? That of the respect that he accords to his own work, to the laws that he himself has sanctioned. Nothing low, nothing degrading, however, should be sensed in his tone; one is expected to say: I accord you today the respectful deference that you would render me tomorrow, if your place is conferred on me. There is this difference between the subjugated man and the free man: the former bowsbefore such a man to have the right to rise before this other; the Republican does not bow, he kneels before the low, and sees all men at his level. But, you will say, particular interests, the need one feels, at every moment, to involve his peer in order to merit some preferences that he does not owe us at all; the deference imposed by talents,physical force, even virtue, do they not compress equality at every moment? Yes, and only imbecility can brave them with impunity; but republican pride loses nothing here. If I, a poor pygmy, if I meet Hercules: I greet you, I say to him; I admire your strength, and I am proud to be the same man as you in the social order. After the revolution, a nuance which please me did not escape me on the part of the musicians who are inferior to me in talent. Formerly, I was for them a favorite of the public and of the court; today I feel that they say to me: I continue to respect your talents, friend, but I go to court as you do; I am your equal in sovereignty when we are in the Councils. Republicans, let us never forget that the weakness of man isthe desire to dominate. Let us be wary of cunning, of the aristocracy of men with positions; they often want to confuse the man with his dignity; but let us accord nothing to man, unless he be virtuous, for then, we owe him the homages were would render to him, being without position. Ifhe is provided with a position and he renders himself worthyof scorn, in making use of his title, always respectable,

let us make him feel that he is below us through his base behaviors. Let us always be true; we will always be strong. If insolence grows to impose on us, subjugate us, let us reject it without consideration and without pity. The one who suffers the insolence of another man is a counter-revolutionary; the coward is preparing another revolution for us. I know that such men are made to be led, directed bysuch other men; so much the worse for those who are born this way; they are lacking in awareness, energy, nature wanted it; but the man who feels humiliation (and this is the greatest number), who suffers it, and who does not recover from it so soon; I no longer say, this is a coward, I say: this is a traitor to the fatherland, this is an infamous Republican unworthy of this sublime name. Go to theTurks, rid yourself of your virility, prostrate yourself, lick the feet of an insolent master, be more brutish than a beast, be the lying-dog of your peer, be a thousand times inferior to this animal, full of courage, who never humiliates himself before his master except out of love for him; you, vile insect, you do this out of interest, it is through cowardice that you abase yourself. Go, become a Turk, I say, you are unworthy of living among us.

But the noble pride that is so fitting for the free man, the virtuous man, the educated man, degenerates in the man who is null; it becomes boasting, insolence, foolishness, when he has neither reason nor principles. In aword, it is only truth that keeps us in measure; no good measure is practicable if lying is not banned from the greater society, if it does not become an object of public execration.

It is with sorrow that we will cast our eyes on the class of people who are the least educated and the most subject to lies. Among them it is that much more disgusting since it is less masked by this varnish of politeness that the more educated classes know how to use with art and hypocrisy. In the preceding chapter, we saw that at courts one knows how to put things in order through lying; the

people, on the contrary, put itself out of order through lying, since it lies coarsely and without art; the two extremes, noble-falsity, and brutish frankness, cannot approach each other here. But, although we would not write an apology for either one of these two allures, in good faith, the noble, false and polished measure of the people of court is preferable to the lack of measure, always stupidand foolish, even if it is also directed by the falsity of the maladroit and uneducated man.

Chap. 17. On retail commerce

Whether one buys or sells, retail commerce offers, between the seller and the buyer, a conflict of falsity, of baseness, and of lying that dishonors humanity. English merchants, they say, have warned us about mercantile loyalty, which announces the good faith, the order, the pride, and the opulence of a nation. They assure us that today, among all the affluent lessees of London, it would bea pointless affront to offer them a price lower than that that which they had initially assigned to their merchandise.They will even be convinced someday that the commercial despotism that they wish to exercise on the seas is only proper to cause all nations to revolt against them; and thatone against all was never in this world but a moment of prosperity followed by the most frightful disasters.

What honest soul has not been filled with indignation, by listening every day in our streets and markets to the following dialogue. How much is this? – In my soul and conscience, that is twenty-four francs. – I will give you six. – You are mocking us…and the buyer leaves. –OK, says the merchant, take it; but in God’s truth, I am losing more than half. It is only being habituated to such disorder thatcan make him bear this with sang-froid. When a woman of the people buys a few knickknacks, she thinks they are detestable as long as they are in the hands of the merchant;once she is back home, she never has seen anything so nice. What a lesson for the child who accompanies his mother! A nation that is policed like ours cannot tolerate such abuseswhich show disloyalty, crapulousness, and ignorance. ---These abuses, you will say, are all the more difficult to repress since they are encouraged by interest. ---- This interest is misunderstood; I only see there the loss of precious time for the people. If it were not necessary to

haggle about everything that one buys, the household purchases which take two hours to do, would be finished in aquarter-hour. It is in the interest of honor and reputation that one uproots sordid and crapulous interest. I remember the harangue of this officer who had been ordered to break up a popular gathering: “Citizens!” he said, “I have been ordered to open fire on the rabble; I thus ask the honest folk to leave.” No one remained on the square. Let the same be said, with the sound of the trumpet, in the markets: “There is only place here for honest merchants; those who overcharge people for their merchandise will chased out likescoundrels”, and soon this lying and fraudulent mania will cease. It is asking too much, you will say further, to want to change the conscience of the people, and to try to lead them to a perfection of their mores; they will always lean toward their most pressing interests. I do not say the opposite; but, if their most pressing interests, those of public consideration, and the necessity of being honest in order to be able to tranquilly earn their living, force themto move toward the good, healthy morality triumphs, and it is to government that these powerful measures belong. There is, I know, a class of men as vicious as they are educated, who have sacrificed their honor and conscience to the immoralities which they profess. In order to avoid the scornto which they are devoted, they only see their peers; among them, all worthy of the same reproaches, they have nothing to reproach each other for. At present we are not even speaking of those beings hardened in crime and lies; but theman of the people, whom one can lead to good or evil, is rectified through opinion, and always becomes that which onewants it to be. Let him receive a public education in which the truth is the basis for everything, and the next generation will already be rectified. But for the little merchants, the works to be led toward sincerity, the strong businessmen, the more educated men, should take on, in everything, an allure for which they owe an example to the people.

Chapter 18.On wholesale commerce.

It is in the books that deal specifically with commercethat one finds all the views that are able to make it flourish. There, everything must be said, the interests, commercial connections between nations, should be precisely developed there. We are only envisaging here the commerce which under its connections with mores, and whatever we may be able to say, having never been in on the secret, we will only be able to touch on this vast subject.

The exorbitant luxury of merchants, almost always followed by a complete and unexpected fall, often is astonishing to the public. How does it happen that one fallsin one day from the top of the wheel of fortune to its bottom-most place? There is a strong businessman who suddenly failed, and who, in his fall, drags twenty others with him. --- Did nothing foretell this disaster? --- No, nothing. Some shipwrecked vessels, a fire, a government action, have overturned these twenty enormous fortunes. --- Were they actually such? This is what we will examine.

The question has often been addressed of whether the luxury which has reigned in Paris for a century, is fitting for its political situation, or if it should be repressed. Women spend, only on rags, the revenues of all the little princes of Germany, and all the expenditures on luxury are in proportion to this. Yes, I believe that luxury is appropriate for Paris; I think that it should be the center of the sciences, the arts, commerce, riches, elegance, and good taste. Renouncing all these things, after having done everything in order to possess them, is impossible unless violence compels it. This is the empty dream of an atrabilious philosopher, who wants to destroy everything forthe pleasure of talking about principles, and always seeing things begin again. But the scandalous pomp of the dealmakers, which carries almost all of them to fraudulent bankruptcies, is an intolerable abuse. – I cannot pay, theysay as well, because they have done the same to me. Yes, but

if you all spend above that which you really possess, you are all guilty, and responsible for each other. What do you actually have? Enormous sums on paper, which your credit makes us regard as being real. But are they? No, all these amounts are fictitious. You owe Peter, Peter owes Paul, Paulowes John, John owes James, James owes you, and the circle begins again. Nothing belongs to you, unless you can say: here is a second account which owes nothing to anyone, here is enough to deal with all the risky deals in my business. ---But I have ten million afloat, I only owe one million, I can thus spend, display a certain luxury which gives credit.– These ten millions will perhaps not return either whole orin part. You are too exposed; you want to earn too much, so that you are permitted to devote yourself to spending. Unless your nine millions are yours, we cannot decide which portion belongs to you; any fraction would be arbitrary, anddangerous to honesty. But the merchants which whom I deal have never defaulted. – Perhaps they will default for the first time tomorrow. You have nothing, I tell you, but your furniture, your real estate, and the remainder which is in your hands, if you have not also risked them as well in commerce. Regulate yourself on the basis of these, and you will never default: although a millionaire, in appearance, spend a thousand francs a month, and you will be an honest man78.

I know that it is necessary to be imposing in order to have credit; but, in everything, to impose oneself is to lie, and in commerce it is to lie criminally. Your fraudulent luxury inspires others with a untruthful trust; from your fraudulent luxury results marriages where one of the two parties, and often both, are imposing. And do we notknow? The immodesty of women is an inevitable result of badly matched unions.

78 (G): I am not speaking about those who, after their default, find themselves enriched by the money that they have subtracted from their creditors: in speaking of these sorts of thefts, which they say are quite common, I would fearto soil the pages of this book, as if I recalled the great deeds of Cartouche andMandrin.

Honest businessmen should desire that the balance sheetfor everything be published at a fixed time in the newspapers of all cities of commerce, in the following form:Peter has ten million in his business, he only owes two, and he has five hundred thousand francs in real estate. His spending is proportional. Here is a manwhom one can trust. Paul has twenty million in his business, he only owes three, he has no real estate, and makes large expenditures. Here is one who should not inspire confidence. What surety for commerce in general, if things took place thus! Here is what would provide immense credit! And more; this point is perhaps outré, but it seems to me that all businessmen, knowing deeply their respective situations, should render themselvesresponsible for each other, in order to bear real losses, such the shipwrecked vessels and fires which bring inevitable bankruptcy for the most honest man. How, then, the speculative vermin would be foiled by the true businessmen! How the merchants would be overseen by each other! They would fear, so to speak, to eat their own goods in attending the splendid repast of one of their confreres. This leads to a corporation, I know; but this is useful, sacred, because public good fortune is the salutary result. But, some businessman will say, if, reciprocally, everyone receives and lends without distrust, in the end the results are the same for everyone. Yes, if a bunch of scoundrels or a company of honest folk are the same with regard to public mores – this would be, I think, very difficult to prove. To conclude, I repeat then, some of the sums which you have in your business are not yet yours, since they are exposed to the imprudence of other businessmen to whom you entrusted them, and to the hazard of the perfidious elements. In orderto be irreproachable, view them as almost lost – it is thus that one must view all money invested at more than five per cent. Have, in addition, holdings well invested in money or land; spend them as you please: only these savings belong toyou without restriction.

Chapter 19. On pretty women.79

In my Essays on Music, in the chapter On Women, I depicted them almost without defects. I was speaking then toa young artist whose budding genius received its first impulse from love, or from the women who inspire it; I thus had to show them from the good side, and poetically, for theeyes of the artist. But here it is a question of mores, which impose more severity. In France, especially, the influence of pretty women is too powerful on the spirit of men for it not to be perceived that they are one of the leading moving forces for morality. From the boudoirs to thesalons, from the former to public places, the results are immediate.

It is at this spot, certainly, that a hypocritical moralist would develop the perfidious resources of feminine seduction; it is here that he would make the female sex responsible for the woes over which humanity moans; while itis pride and domination, generators of inequality, that onlylove combats, which are the principal sources. But we, who believe that well directed love is the leading regulator of mores80; we who know that women have for enemies only those among men who have not deserved the honor of pleasing them, or who, like the eunuch of the seraglio, scorning the delectable fruit that they cannot taste, we observe that in every place where the sweet dominion of women is less known,it is there where vices destructive of humanity reign. It is through the influence of the female sex, through her supreme order, through the thirst for her favors, that the pedant is derided, that cursing sweetens its venomous traits, that laziness becomes active, that black envy is changed into emulation, that anger is constrained, that avarice unties the purse strings, that pride capitulates, and that the word pity issues from the most ferocious mouth.It is at the sound of her magic voice that all knees bend…79 (G): Et me meminisse juvabit. – Virgil. TN: A slightly distorted quite from Aeneid, Book 1. 80 (G): See the chapter which bears this title.

enchanting sex, see your power! I would like to name your defects, and, in spite of myself, I write your apologia!

The regenerated French nation applying itself generallyto commerce in which it no longer blushes at extending the various branches, it is further to businessmen, and especially to their wives, that we address ourselves. The greater part of collapses of houses of commerce are occasioned by the luxury of the wives and daughters of the businessmen. Brilliant jewelry, renewed daily, lead without realizing it to a set of things in the whole household, for which the female sex, more so than we, possesses the delicate touch. Jewelry requires carriages, the carriages require valets and vast mansions; when one is magnificently dressed, it is in order to show oneself in company and at spectacles, one must have boxes at the theater, and reciprocate the banquets to which one has been invited. Oncethis course of events has been established, it becomes extremely difficult to lower one’s tone; then, in order to lose one’s standing, on is precipitated into numerous affairs that one cannot oversee exactly, and into risky business. We cannot deny that this woe comes more from the luxury of women, who love everything that sparkles, than from dedicated businessmen, much prouder of their credit than of imposing pomp. But have we ever accused children forthe misconduct of their parents? It would be almost as unjust to reproach wives for the weakness of their husbands.It is in order to please them, it is true, that they come toterms with evil; however, they are wrong; for, let us be very certain of this, they love to find in the man the strength of character that they lack; and always, after a unhappy catastrophe, they accuse their husbands of having, through weakness, acquiesced to their fantasies. Shall we reproach women for being flighty and inconsequent? One must first accuse nature who only gave them a third of our strength, besides the fact that, among them, this strength is unequally divided. The well-born man is equally strong inall the parts of his being; for women, in contrast, one physical force dominates the other physical forces, and her morality is dragged along by this impulse. Her visible

structure, her internal anatomy, show a local solidity, prepared by nature to favor the generation of the human species. If women had as much strength in their whole being as they are endowed with partially; if, for them, the stomach, the chest, the head were in proportion with the inferior parts, they would be like Hercules, and we, like pygmies. I say further, these forces, unequally distributed in their individual, must make them easily deviate from moral balance, and make their desires unsteady, except for the point at which they are endowed with greater forces. Letus also remark that their instinct, their conduct are connected to the sole object for which they are created: they adorn themselves, take pleasure in their natural beauties, why? …all their manners are graces and teasing coquetries, why? …. Sometimes they have the boldness of a lioness, and never more strength than a lamb, why? …if they are carried away with wrath and they wish to surpass their strength, immediately the fainting which follows their transport delivers them to our mercy, why? … with the exception of the physical and the moral of love, where womanfeels her superiority over us, she knows well how much the man is superior to her: her dissemblings attest to this: dissembling has always been the way of weakness. It is through the qualities opposed to her defects that she gives us the feeling of her forces, that she knows how to advantageously combat us. She always opposes her sweetness to our transports. Her coquetry takes the place of our proudsufficiency, her caresses, true or dissembled, put limits toour despotism…. Without the instinct of woman, that of man would only be ferocity in the state of nature, and pride in that of civilization. One single moral abuse, but quite baleful to mores, andwhich has to do with the coquetry of the female sex, deserves, in the large cities, the entire attention of government.

When the patriarch Franklin told us pleasantly that onecould, in Paris, economize annually several million francs in tapers, candles, and oil, if one would rise and go to bed

with the sun, it seemed to be that the basis of his moralitymeant to say that we were consuming our health, that is to say, the fire of life, in the fire of our lamps. In effect, to the extent that women change day for night, simply because they appear prettier under lights, and that then necessarily, in making night day, they pass in it half the day in their beds, and the entire day during the winter, we cannot avoid the ills that must arise from this moral irregularity. The poor health of the women, that of the men whom they drag after them through their irresistible charms,the bad complexion of the children born from vaporous mothers and enervated fathers, are the physical results of this reversal of the natural order; and we know it, almost all the inherited diseases are incurable. It would be easy, however, to remedy this abuse; for all public and private amusements are subject to the great affairs of government and commerce, because, finally, one must first seek gold, which provides all the rest, except for health and wisdom. The time destined for all the amusements thus depends on thelegislator and the government. Let the meetings of the Legislative Body, of all the constituted authorities, and ofthe innumerable quantity of bureaus that depends on them, begin in the summer at six in the morning, in winter, at nine; let all these matters be concluded at a fixed hour, except in the case when the republic is in danger; let the bourse and the commercial bureaus be subject to the same rule, all is rectified; all, instantaneously, will take a new direction, for the simple reason that one must sleep, that interest is a good alarm clock, that no one would want to rise when business is concluded, and that, finally, in order to be able to rise early, one must necessarily go to sleep early as well. Then, great repasts towards the middle of the day, spectacles, balls, assemblies, or promenades at four o’clock; and, in order to be able to sleep eight hours,the ordinary quantity that we must pay to nature, everyone will be forced to go to bed at eight or nine o’clock at night. This regime would be upsetting to the pretty women – no matter. They would sulk for a few days; they would say that it is horrible to have to live like the feathered and

furry creatures; that the sun is a terrible indiscretion; once more, no matter, let them say it; do we not see that they give in, when we want something strongly and absolutely? Then (this will no longer be a horror), they will become stronger and more beautiful; their children willbe more robust. – What will they do, good God! From six or eight in the morning until noon? -- What they do today, butat different times. If they want to do better, in the summer, they will go for a promenade; they will go to see their children at their apartments; there, they will find horses, music, gymnastic games, with which their children, their spouses, their lovers, and themselves will be amused. Let a stylish woman receive a prize, let the newspapers pay homage to her, and soon all the woman will run en masse to these salutary exercises. – In winter, what will they do? –They will go see the celebrated men whom they will inflame with their amiable presence; they will more and more communicate to them the love of glory; they will never leavea study, an atelier, without taking with them some precious knowledge; and a thousand homages will be paid them by the learned ones whom they deign to visit, and who will immortalize their names in their immortal works. Once mores will have taken this truly natural direction, our young people will become athletes in order to surpass in strength women who will make them blush through their proud expressions and their noble habits; insipid Gaulish gallantry will be extinguished; vaporous sighs, now à la mode,will seem ridiculous and will be forgotten; the old galant will no longer dare to give his weak arm to the young lady, who, with her nimble and rapid pace, drags her protector after her, tottering at each step. If he still claims to be amorous and to carry out its functions, his superannuated sighs will seem as ridiculous as the cries of the donkey braying his painful martyrdom.

The ceremony with which we envelope love shows how

factitious we are. It is true that love will always be, moreor less, surrounded with prestige; nature wants it this way,and there is its greatest miracle; but, to the extent that

we will adopt truth as the basis of mores, those of Cythereawill be simplified. Today, in order to be love, one must take care not to show this overmuch to the object which one wishes to pleases; all is lost if he puts you in the rank ofthe slave whom one commands without glory. Let us examine this question.

Chap. 20.To be loved, it is necessary to love much?

According to the proposition which closes the previous chapter, this is the subsequent question. The short-sighted men will be for the affirmative; but if one asks the same question to the man scrutinizing the human heart, if one asks him, must one love much, in order to be loved in the same way, he will respond, in the physical, yes; in the moral, no. He will make distinctions between love, fruit of instinct, or that which is only excited by the amour-propre of societies; it is this which we me must understand by physical or moral love. He will distinguish, further, between the penchant which we have one for another, and which we vulgarly call love of neighbor, which is also natural, or pushed by interest. Let us speak succinctly of these various sentiments, and let us try not to confuse them.

Simply in the physical, love between the sexes arises from a conformity of tastes, sentiments, and ideas. The morethey love us as we love, the stronger the sympathy; and if they sacrifice their tastes, desires to us, recognition increases loves still further. However, there is a tacit, implicit condition between two individuals who love each other instinctually – the sacrifices must be reciprocal; forone is always sacrificing to the other without compensation,soon the first has no more love, and the love of the latter is like that of master toward slave: he nourishes it becausehis work brings him a thousand percent above the expense of nourishing it. But in the moral of love, where vanity prevails over instinct, quite a different approach is need to maintain its flame:

L’amour croît s’il s'inquiète,

Il endort s’il est content81 ,

81 TN: Love grows if it is worried, and sleeps if it is content.

said the deep moralist who was amorous his whole life long. Let us also connect this to lovers, to women, above all, in order to know how to nurture the torment which endlessly rocks the skiff traveling to Cytherea, or which returns from the voyage.

In the two sexes, the physical and the moral of lover are a completely egotistical passion; everything is personalthere, although we seem to do everything for another. I loveyou means I need you. I adore you signifies I will die, if you do not give in to my vows. Both know that they are lyingwhen they talk like this; and when the woman pretends to only be subjugated by the pressing protestations of the impassioned man, this is often in order to conceal the need she has to give in, or to deceive him 82.

The need to love and to please must be reciprocal between the two individuals, without which one of the two isonly ridiculous through his sighs and his tears: no pity softens the one who does not love at all; the gold of Mexicocan buy a conquest, but never a heart. It is thus through moral ruses that one must go to war in love; for the times are too far gone where natural sympathy lead openly from thetemple of love to that of hymen; a thousand considerations, a thousand obstacles halt instinct, and almost always renderhymen inaccessible to true lovers.

Once moral agreements decide on the union of the sexes,it is rare for instinct to confirm them; and these agreements then become more powerful than instinct itself. When one needs a prince for a princess, a noble for a noble,a rich man for a rich woman, a bourgeois for a bourgeoise, and even a Catholic for a Catholic, what is the point of thenatural impulse? More than true love, amour-propre decides the choice we are making: it is in a class superior to one’sown that one wishes to choose; one sighs, today, for the brilliant woman with a fortune, who, tomorrow, reduced to poverty, now inspires nothing.

82 (G): See the chapter On the lies of love.

In this sense, in this situation, to declare one’s loveto a woman means to say: I wish to elevate myself to your level. She then suspects you of inferiority, since you seek to shine with her luster; from then on, dissembling, illusions, fictions without end are used in order to please;we wish to pass for noble, for rich, for a man of spirit; inthe grand world one plays tragedy, and comedy among the bourgeois. One lies at will, and let us not hide it, in the world such as it is, one would be regarded as mad if ingenuously one announced one’s natural penchant without passing through the circle of the proprieties required by etiquette; one would be called ridiculous, if one tried to confuse classes and bring them too closely together. Let us summarize this point. We love by instinct, through need to love, and through amour-propre; among two lovers, the one who honors the other is the most loved. If merit, estates are more or less equal, the outbreaks of love, which are revealed by jealousy, pass from one individual to the other;and the spite, the jealousy of one of the two, gives the other a worry which alarms the former. It is through the fear of losing each other, or the hope of keeping each other, that we love for a long time, and madly; without conscious thought, lovers practice this technique marvelously. Woman must manifest the plenitude of her sentiments less than man; man must make the advances; and every woman who plays the role of the man must expect to be promptly abandoned.

Let us speak now of non-sensual love, of the love of neighbor. Do we love more those on whom we impose, or those who impose on us? I think that it is only the sage who wishes neither to dominate nor be dominated. With regard to men in general, they love less those who are absolutely subject to them than those who maintain them within the bounds of a certain respect. Vulgar men easily allow themselves to be imposed upon by the power that they love and dread.

They do not love those who regularly treat them well, but those who can do them good or ill; they do not love the

sun as much as a king. Man, always full of doubts and worries about the present and the future willingly gives into who knows how to fix it, because in his irresolution heloves to find a support. In general, we let ourselves be imposed on before being sure that they are not imposing on us at all. I say further, knowing the illusions of courtly pomp, we allow ourselves to be further imposed on by them. In returning from Versailles, we were not the same as when we went there; the more or less direct influence of the raysof power that we had just received had fortified us. Man is thus never strong enough by himself, and little by little, men need to be maintained in the circle from which amour-propre endlessly wants to make them deviate. Men in society are the image of ocean waves – the strong dominate and have the upper hand over the weak.

If we delve into the heart of man, we will see that generally we do not love those who are only subject to us through the pleasure of dominating them. We pretend to love more, but we love less; nevertheless, we still love, as I have said, those who compel respect from us, whether throughtheir own merit or through the power vested in them. But we hate, we sovereignly scorn pretense without power, and fallen power. Nothing inspires pity without respect as much as a dethroned king; once he made us tremble, at present he is a lion, pierced with arrows, expiring on a pile of manure, that the curs, once tame, insult, while the spectators burst out laughing.

Let us repeat once more, that it is the love of self that constitutes within us the various feelings of good will; it is for oneself that we love others; we love becausewe love ourselves. One must be strong in one’s virtue to do good for others at one’s expense; and further, if one did not receive inner contentment, the recompense of beautiful souls, who could, who would be virtuous? Do you have some favor to ask? Choose the moment where the man whom you have need of love is happy with himself; one only likes to make someone happy when one is happy oneself; we see it as unjust

to give happiness when we are suffering. The man who watcheshimself, the man in place, especially, must have remarked how much the happiness he enjoys, or the often concealed distress that he is prey to, cause him receive differently those who make request of him. What man was absolutely the same yesterday and today? What powerful man was the same as before, after having been solicited earnestly and artfully? – If I may be permitted to speak about myself for a moment, and certainly this is not to praise myself, not to praise our fragile nature (1). I was poorly disposed; I wanted to write, and had no ideas; I had crossed out and thrown into the fire various sheets of paper; I took up another, it had writing on one side, I read it, and it was verses of praise addressed to me; I turned over the page, and I wrote fluently and as I desired what I had tried vainly to write ten times…..Poor human nature, I said to myself! Here then is what I need to dispel the chaos which hindered me, and tomake me well-disposed!

I do not know if what I am going to say is a paradox, but perhaps the men with the most antipathy between them, given their different characters and prejudices, are often those who could most profit, with regard to each other, if they sought ways of approaching each other. What! You will say, can cunning and probity, lies and truth ever find common ground? -- God forbid that I should thus wish to confuse vices and virtues. I am only speaking of those misunderstood hatreds between man and man, nation and nation, based on prejudices, manners, a language, different exteriors; and especially based on the jealousy inspired by the reciprocal talents that we are obliged to recognize in ones’ rivals, and which do not exist any less though we attempt to disregard them. Apart from the fact that education is increasingly perfected among all peoples, it seems, for example, that between the French and English, each has the corrective that the other needs; the overly petulant activity of one would be tempered by the reflectionof the other. Too much of a pension for sad passions by the residents on the Thames would be enlightened by the joyous

instinct of the French. One can recognize in London the young Englishman who has sojourned in Paris; just as those of our young people who have stayed in London boast a solidity of judgment that our amiable dandies do not have. After peace, commerce, which is indispensable between these two educated peoples, will certainly force them to love eachother more than they have until the present time. In order for this to better succeed, they should make numerous exchanges among their children; exchanges which the two governments should solicit and protect. The children of the two nations, in learning their languages, their respective trade, would above all learn to love each other; nothing so links the families of two neighboring peoples as the exchanges which I mention; for the child of one to be well treated, one must necessarily look after the good treatment of his correspondent; it is necessary, through all possible good procedures, to assure that the young Englishwoman and young Englishman exchanged write to their parents, that there is no sort of consideration, attention, kindness that we do not provide for them, certain, then, that they will act in the same way towards one’s own child. Interest is thechain which links men in society; intimate liaisons, trust, marriages will arise from these exchanges: and just as the Romans and the Sabines were brought together through the union of the sexes, through the same means, France and England will cease to be enemies, and will learn to love each other as much as they esteem each other. One of the most lively regrets of the honest man is that of seeing two peoples, made to mutually admire each other, constantly in strife and war, while their scholars and their philanthropists esteem each other and moan about this disunion which is as strong as it is monstrous and unreasonable. Another of my regrets is that of dying withouthaving seen the country of Locke, Newton, Bacon, Shakespeare, Pope, Milton, Handel, Sterne, Richardson, Garrick. France has more artists, more virtuosos, more literary figures than does England; but does it have as manyphilosophers, as many original men as those that I have cited? France lacked the main vehicle which makes men

vigorous; it was lacking the love of liberty, for which the English, wandering over the seas, have always preserved the germ.

A nation all of whose efforts consists in pleasing its king may be the most amiable, but not most fertile in men ofan original genius. For the rest, France has reconquered itsrights to political liberty; we cannot calculate the value of the goods that it will gain from this. The spirit, the natural activity of the French, linked with Republican prideand freedom of thought, should produce, in fifty years, the rarest of men. Happy he who, still young, can arrive at these fortunate times! Woe to us who will not see them, and who, impelled by age, will quit our beloved land at the dawnof its regeneration and its happiness! But do our present mores promise that which we dare to hope? Yes, and we will say why.

NOTES FOR THE TWENTIETH CHAPTER.

(1) Whence comes this delicacy on the part of the author, someone will say? After having written the memoirs of his life, he can, without surprising us, return to the scene. –Have we weighted well, considered well this question, knowing whether it is bad to speak naively of oneself, or ifit is a greater ill to lie, in order not to speak of this atall; or, which amounts to the same thing, to dissemble everything connected with us; to constantly tack in rejecting in the general that which only belongs to ourselves? To tremble to say I, when I pierces everywhere! When egotism appears the more when we pretend to hide it? Ieven suppose that in speaking of oneself, we lie a little inorder to show ourselves from the good side; have we properlyexamined what results morally from this lie? Is it more baleful for the man who writes than for he who reads? Does not the reader sense that the more the author makes humble efforts to forget his dear person, the more it costs for his

amour-propre? In order not to go beyond the limits of a note, let us summarize this. First, the man who speaks frankly in his own name, is more persuasive to the reader than by distilling they say, they believe, it is possible, it is probable…this is when we read: I, Michel de Montaigne,or I, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, I think this way, that we are awoken and struck by persuasion, at least of that which the author says that he thinks. When a writer say, men believe such a thing, are we quite sure that he himself believes it?Is he obligated, because some others think this, to make it his believe, to regard it as an aphorism for him, and to fortify his morality with it? No, he speaks in the name of all, I can think that he cedes to common opinion, but that he has some feeling in reserve that he conceals through propriety or through fear of compromising himself with respect to the imposing authorizes. But if he speaks in his own name, I defy him to not plant in his soul and consciencethat which he has just affirmed and published across the face of the earth. There is something then, good or bad; praiseworthy or punishable; without bias, he must hold to itin the future, or this is man who is null, a divagator. Withrespect to the reader, he is, as I have said, more persuadedby the intimate sentiments of the author who speaks for him,and it is an essential point for us to read him with value. How one is happy, he will say in reflecting, to dare to talkof one’s good without fear of being contradicted! Do I not also have some good qualities that could serve as examples if I revealed them? Assuredly. Let us expand this warehouse,then in order to provide it to the public some fine day. ---And in the hope of being useful, known, celebrated, my man makes himself better through his reflections and his effortsupon himself. It is thus, from one to the next, that good public conscience is formed. --- But decency? ---Decency is to be true with decency; and to pretend to forget oneself, is to lie: there is nothing more indecent than the lie.

; Chapter 21.

On present mores. Our mores, it is true, still have little character83; they are waiting, to be fixed for the revolution to be terminatedby a general peace, and for a government more and more consolidated by time. In waiting, we know, the old do what they always do, they regret the past, and live as much as they can as if they were still under the ancien régime. This formerly great falls sick under lock and key; there, puttingon his plaques and his ribbons, he still has himself called monseigneur by his valets84. The ruined rich rentier suffers between humiliation and misery; an ample costume recalls hisformer opulence, but usury indicates his present poverty.

Current mores and customs are a sort of moving tableau for which we need some time yet before they deserve the honor of being consecrated and being named national. Monarchical customs, already superannuated, mixed with thoseof the ancient republics, now become modern again, offer a motley which is far from common. The old man whose clothing recalls the former court, marches surrounded by his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, dressed à la grecque. It is above all in its dress that France is already republican, and it is through this that it will adopt the feelings of pride and liberty that it is still lacking. In alittle while, no young woman, under penalty of being regarded as old, will dare to speak about the customs and fashions of the monarchy. None will dare to say they wore court dress, à la Dubarry, à la Duchesse, à la Dauphine, à la Polonaise. . . . All the manners of dressing, of coiffure, finally, everything which would make one suspect that a woman is older than fifteen or twenty, will be prudently trimmed from their conversations. She is a woman of

83 (G): Year 7.  84 (G): I was the invisible witness of a scene of this kind; first, I wanted tolaugh, but, after having rapidly reflected on how indestructible man’s amour-propre is, pity prevailed, and I left.

the ancien régime, will soon become, for French women, a ridiculous label to which they would not like to be exposed.French! Preserve well, believe me, the liberty that you havetoday to dress as you please. Remember this, when you will no longer be permitted to go to visit those of high positionin redingote, frock coat or habit; in boots or in slippers ofwool or silk; in wide or narrow cravat; with long hair or with shaved head….in such a case, remember, I say, your political liberty will run great risks. Yes, when you becomeslaves in your dress once more, you soon will be slaves in your mores.

Today artists rightly complain of having lost that which occupied them, for all who were rich have become poor;but a thousand nouveaux riches have taken and will take their places, they would like in turn to be educated in order to be in line with their opulence, and they will causeto flourish once more the arts that the government protects.Young artists will replace us, and no revolution (for they are rare) will deprive them of the fruit of their labors.

The scholars, artists who have suffered the storms of the revolutionary transition, quite different from the former nobles and ruined rentiers, bear their present state with courage and dignity. For some, it is true, they only need some good books, blank paper, a compass, in order to behappy; for others, canvas, pencils, a block of stone, to be satisfied; it is into posterity that they transport themselves in order to be happy. But, I do not doubt it, thetime is approaching when the celebrated man will receive some compensation from the nation. The revered product of his noble sweat will not be taken from him forever. The humble cottage that he wished to acquire in order to end hiscareer there will be rendered him, when more pressing needs will allow the state to acquit itself towards those of this sacred debt. Finally, we are persuaded, the French nation isendowed with such delicate feeling, that it will soon feel the necessity for harmonizing its custom and mores with the fundamental laws of the nation. No people has been better

able, and with as much grace, to respect proprieties, although factitious for the most part. Today, when truth hasreplaced error, it will likewise be able to put itself in order, and give the tone of amiable frankness, such as was formerly practiced in Athens, to the rest of Europe which has always been pleased to imitate her.

Chap. 22. To give the tone.

This word, which ought to be dropped from the Republican dictionary, is very much in use in monarchies, where everyone is an imitator, because no one dares to thinkor act outside his instinct85. There, from the throne to bourgeois coteries, we find leaders in each estate who communicate their manners of thinking and of being; and the one who gives the tone to the last stage of the society, is only the ridiculous imitator of the subaltern of the superior classes.

In order to imitate their master, the officers who mostly closely approach Alexander carried, they say, their heads leaning to one side; likewise, under the Kings of France, the courtiers adopted Royal manners. The French people, although having become Republican, is too light not to like imitation. Its geographic position, between the realNorth and South, makes it participate in southern and northern influences; the inconstancy of its climate renders it inconstant; it is, more than any people, susceptible to impressions, and it suffices to offer it good models for it to follow them. Since the ennui of uniformity pushes it to change, it already happier, before knowing if it will profitby the change. The bizarre mores of its ancestors have taught it to repress scorn, even when it is deserved; teach this people that scorn is justice toward the lying scoundrel; that without alteration we can no longer combine truth except with unity, and this people knows everything. It proves that its natural mobility is not weakness, but need to act, because it is pushed, affected in an opposite direction by the various temperatures which surround it; it proves that this mobility is not compatible with the perfection that we desire for it; that it can believe and bestrongly attached, since it was always unshakeable on the 85 (G): See the chapter On princes and courtiers.

prejudice of honor, which men without mores pretended to adopt as well in order to be able to lie and steal with impunity. After two thousand years of monarchy, the revolution which took place in France shows that enlightenment leads to political liberty; but if the latter,resting on more solid bases than ever, does not lead to truth without dissimulation, to pure and frank truth, we must believe then education, although quite general, has notbeen completed; that the secret of good mores has not yet been found, and that the overly weak roots of the unique tree of liberty, of science, and of perfected reason, have as yet only produced the little bush that time will fructify. But let us not be discouraged, for liberty, such as we have reconquered it, liberty, fruit of education, is love of truth; and, I repeat, the fidelity of the Frenchman for his favorite prejudice, proves that although changing his clothes and his mistress daily, he can remain intact on the point of honor. Let us persuade him that honor, in all things, is the observance of the truth; then the French people will be as respectable in morality as, after the Greeks and Romans, it was constantly the most amiable of allthe peoples.

But the amiability such as we recognize as in the French - is it compatible with the strict truth that we seemto demand? Yes, for politeness, tolerance, and enthusiasm, qualities that make men amiable, are not lying. Let us guardourselves, on the contrary, against a rebarbative stoicism towards those who take oblique paths; a smile, an intelligent persiflage, are sufficient to relieve a gasconade, without irritating the speaker; and, if the case is too serious to allow pleasantry, a noble scorn is the weapon which we must make us of in company. A come-now, we willspeak no more about it, on the part of a respected man; or you areyoung, monsieur, on the part of a mistress from an estimable house, are lessons that one cannot receive three times without being dismissed.

Since, whatever his government may be, the Frenchman should love innovation, what will his national coryphaei be?

The power of those governing, that of educated man, that of beautiful youth, have always had the honor of the initiativein the various tones that all the other men follow; and, if the truth is adopted as the principal basis of mores, the entire magisterium will communicate in part the aplomb and the serenity of virtue; the educated man will serve as example, being stripped of all charlatanism; and beautiful youth, always exasperated in its creation, will set some limits for its delirium.

Nothing so difficult as to have the proper tone for one’s estate, unless one allows oneself to go, without resistance, to one’s natural allure. But everyone wants to pass for that which is above one, and in this way, no one isin his natural state. Everyone believes he is giving the tone by taking that of his superior. The simple tone is always true; all affected tones are simply lies, and this iswhy they displease. We do not take a tone with those who know us individually, and we certainly know why: they are aucourant with our habitual weaknesses. Vis-à-vis with those whom we do not know, our sufficiency is very out of place, for they are our inferiors, and if they grant this title to us, it is rarely through deference, but through baseness or in order to deceive us; if, after having made our acquaintance, they find themselves to be our superiors, the shame rests with us. With men whom we do not know at all, and whatever their exterior may be, it is thus very appropriate to take an honest and reserved tone, for the individual for whom you have deference because of his easy air and his fine figure, may turn out to be an acrobat; and the man who is puny in appearance, toward whom you boasted, is perhaps one of the leading men of his age.

What nuances of fallen amour-propre, what repressed brutalities have we not seen in the time of the terror! We no longer recognized anyone then; manners, voices, tones, everything was changed. He who had spoken loudly, spoke softly, and vice versa. The petty and the great, the rich and the poor feared public vendetta; the coachmen, instead of running you down, stopped in the corners of the streets,

and, hat in hand, asked you to get in. Is it not humiliatingfor humanity that it should act supposedly only due to the stirrups that it dreads? While the truth will always be the best possible that we can say and do? (1).

But the simple and true tone can only belong to men endowed with social virtues and superior talents; to men forwhom an ancient right is almost hereditary. Then their tone,their manners are in unison with the purity of their mores; the harmony which reigns among their actions reacts and comes to be depicted on the features of their physiognomy, and gives to all their movements that aplomb, that regularity which we love. On the contrary, there is always some secret boastfulness, or a grain of vertigo in those whohumiliate us through their health, or their irregular pretentions. What correctness of tone should we expect from one whose scale is false? I mean, from one whose ignorance confuses ideas of just and unjust? Who lives without morality, or who, slave of the laws, only obeys them out of fear? Such a man is always in doubt about what he should require or grant, he confuses both men and things.

The one which pretty women take with us is rarely difficult to bear; the only motive which directs them being the desire to please us, how can one complain of efforts always directed toward our happiness? If the tone of a womandispleases us, it is often because it forces us to renounce her conquest; should she give us hope, we soon find her moreamiable. Among pretty women, there is only rivalry; they displease each us other, criticize each other, shred each other without pity. If women did not teach us to know their defects, we would always ignore them. Interaction with pretty women, especially the happiness of

pleasing them, gives to our young people an affectation to thoughtlessness which is no longer bearable once past the age of fifteen or eighteen. The thoughtless ones of twenty or thirty, who show and decide on everything with a lightness entirely more forgiveable for children, are beingsfor which one cannot assign any class; they are neither children, nor women, nor men, they are, if you like amusing,

but ridiculous originals. Each season has its flowers or fruits, its fogs or its frosts; likewise, youth, maturity, or old age have their own proper tones which we cannot change without doing harm to truth. According to the age of man, truth has various nuances which we must know how to respect; it is more amiable in youth, but more solid and respectable in maturity.

Without doing injury to the truth, one cannot transposeto one age the tone which is appropriate to another; the same truth is a natural and scented flower in the ripeness of age; it is only an artificial flower, without scent, in advanced age. Likewise, the fruits of experience in advancedage. Likewise, the fruits of experience are the treasures that maturity gives to society; they are precocious in youth, when a forced cultivation has hastened their development. However, let us not confuse the advantageous tone of some young people who have received some education, with that of ignorant men. There are good folk simple enoughto believe that the insolent that one takes with them is that which they should in turn take with others. I have seena game-keeper who thought that he was being entirely correctin taking on the impudent tone of his master; he knew nothing more beautiful, more noble, more respectful than thehaughty tone that his lord the marquis took with him; and the confusion of ideas was such in the head of this poor man, that the more he wanted show deference to someone, the more impertinent his tone became. This valet of the ancien regime was far from knowing that tones should be annihilatedin proportion to moral distances, as sounds diminish according to physical distances. When a king, for example, questions some subaltern in his house, no gesture, no declamation should be felt in his response, as laconic as possible. My gardener also greets me with the tone of the financiers that he has served and who preceded me in the hermitage of Émile; but, once I go beyond a good morning, hereturns to the tone of a good man. He is called the Absolute:one of my friends, a lover of puns, questions him often about gardening, and when he is not content with his

responses, he says: Absolutely. Yes, monsieur, my gardener always responds naively.

But if there are good folks who are ignorant even of the sense of the tone that they are imitating, there are insolent people who must be rejected without pity. Let us not be dupes by the tone that they take – it is often through poltroonery that they are impudent. It is almost always in trembling that they essay a resolute tone. Note that they try you out several times, in stammering the wordsmy friend, my dear, without daring to clearly articulate anyformula of greeting; but a glance, a severe word from the man of principles, easily puts them in their place. It is true

That a sot always finds a more sottish sot to admire him:

Here we have something to console the sots; but this verse could have a pendant which would say:

A sot often finds a wise man to instruct him,

And the balance would be equal, if we could easily count athousand sots for one wise man. Let us hold back the sots, then; let us tolerate the weak without pretention, and let us think unceasingly about the weakness of poor humanity. Let us think that the majority of men are indeterminate by nature; that amour-propre torments the poor of spirit as well as the scholars; let us think that the hour of digestion is painful for many folk, and that they do not greet the after-dinner hour like the morning. Has not the insolent young man who is looking you up and down not just marked a rendez-vous with some semi-prostitute? The author who annoys you, has he not just come from a rehearsal of hisplay where everything was amiss? The author, did he not justlose a case? This grave character, did he not just leave thehouse of his mistress, humiliated, indignant that all the science in the world was worth nothing on a certain occasion? . . . . . . We must, rather, regard the tones offatuity, inequalities of humor, finally, all these moral

dissonances, as gaieties, clouds that soon are dissipated, fits of human ill, than as lacks of consideration, or premeditated insolences. For the rest, when the man of nothing is emancipated three times to the point of insolence, nothing better to make him return to himself thanto treat him with a profound respect; this imposing and respectful tone, addressed to a pedant, puts the laughers onyour side while covering him with ridicule, the only weapon worthy of insolent nullity.

If the tone of truth is the only one which pleases and persuades, let us not seek to adopt manners that are foreignto ourselves: let us be that which we are in order to have atrue tone. No imitation can be perfect, since nature, varying unendingly, does not show two beings that are similar on all points. Let us then follow our natural impulse, and repeat, with Boileau :

Nothing is beautiful but the true, only the true is amiable.

NOTE FOR THE TWENTY-SECOND CHAPTER. (1) I note here, in passing, that, a thousand times already,I have invoked august Truth, and will invoke Truth a thousand times more, before having completed the task which I have taken on myself. But, in ceaselessly repeating this same word, I am not at all afraid of wearying my reader; thetruth is everywhere my goal; but viewed from all moral points, it changes its appearance, and takes on an interest which is always being renewed. Thus (if I may dare to compare a masterwork to an essay), thus the Venus de Medici,observed as one moves around it, always presents the truth in new forms.

Chapter 23.Open allure is the only good allure.

Open allure is the only good allure. No allure is satisfying in the long term, if it is not natural. We admirea well-dressed fine horse, we admire the cavalier who is as well dressed as his horse; but after seeing them four times,the admiration already ceases, and soon disgust becomes mixed in. Look, on the contrary, at a frank and good horse with all its hair, mounted by a valet of an squire, who for his spurs has only a pair of clogs, see him every day marching, trotting, galloping, you will experience no satiety, because neither man nor horse has anything exaggerated, they are what they should be to always please, they are neither too beautiful nor too perfect for us. The truly handsome wearies us; our admiration kills all the admirable objects; we are too weak in order to admire for a long time.

It is the same for our too elaborately prepared food; themost exquisite ragouts soon disgust us, and we never tire ofsimple dishes. In applying this to the morality of man, we likewise remark that we soon experience a malaise in being exposed to factitious or studied manners, and those which are in a proper proportion, I mean to say, as simple as theyare frank, please us at all times. I always return to the same consequence: why, through a recherché affectation, go beyond the limits that our nature, our manner of being prescribes? Why pretend to have more than we actually have, since the untruth is to our detriment whether it increases or decreases facts or objects? In abandoning themselves to puerile affectations, we see men who blemish thus all the talent they possess. This is a man filled with spirit, they tell me, and I see only the appearance of a grimacing sot, who has no expression, because he is concerned with giving himself one. Good spirit, the only desirable spirit is that

which indicates to us in everything the limits of the truth.It is with too much spirit that one is insane, as one is stupid when one has none at all. The more spirit one has, that is to say, the more activity of soul, the more necessary it is to direct it well; for the more one has fineperceptions, the easier it is to lose oneself in the labyrinth of ideas and sensations. The man without passions is like a vessel adrift in a dead calm, he moves neither forwards nor backwards. Do passions arise, are the winds unleashed? Then one needs knowledge and prudence in order tonavigate fruitfully. The spirit or the winds are the forces which activate these two navigations, and both have need of a compass; that of the spirit has not yet been found physically; and as the spirit is a metaphysical being which is formed and deformed according to our moral conventions, we will only ever have prudence, good sense, and experience to direct it. For the rest, just as the true compass is the effect of a well-known physical cause, the compass of our actions is the cry of violated nature; we cannot find one that is more sure. There are affected men, mimes, in all estates, and they are all more or less liars. We have already spoken of the mummeries of the great, of the courtiers, and of many others more popular, and just as fullof lies. Scholars, and artists as well, all have some affected allures, some charlatanries that they think that they conceal well, and which, however, reveal that their pretentions surpass their knowledge; or, which amounts to the same thing, that their knowledge is beneath their pretentions. Let us desire to arrive at this point of moral perfection, which, certainly, is not as difficult to find asthe mathematical point of the squaring of the circle; at this laissez-aller of the good La Fontaine, this laissez-aller that is boasted of so much by the people of the beau monde, although to tell the truth, there is among them little merit in possessing this pretended laissez-aller, since most often they have nothing to retain.

Chapter 24. On the respect owed to old age.

Childhood attracts our love, as old age commands our respect. But just as with distress we avert our eyes from the poorly brought-up child, the old man who is not accompanied by the mores and the virtues of his age pushes us to the place which inspires us with respectful feelings; here as well we may repeat that open allure is the only goodallure. The man of middle age, can, it is true, choose, without

being ridiculous between the manners and customs of youth orthose of old age, since he has arrived at the point intermediate between those two ages; however, the man of judgment, having arrived at this period, prefers to anticipate mature age, rather than moving backward towards adolescence; he prefers to be ranked among the class of alert old age rather than superannuated youth. It is thus that he announces in advance to young people the respect that he expects from them; it is thus that he enjoys ridiculing his elders who pretend to be his juniors; that hetreats them more cavalierly, and forces them to respect in order to punish them for their foolish pretentions. Let us put it like this then: to the extent that we do not see men between the two ages reveling in the costume and set mannersof the old, this will be the sign that old age is not respected; but also, to the extent that we see the old take on the airs of youth, we should say that maturity does not deserve any respect.

Let us agree then, that it is difficult to find men of sixty who decided to demand their rights; and expression: A man of my age! scarcely is to be heard from their mouths, unless we insult them or provoke them to combat. However, for both sexes, there is nothing more sure than avoiding anyexaggerated pretention. Nothing more amiable than a pretty woman who, in good faith, no longer thinks that she is of anage to please; young and old, all want to prove the contraryto her. Nothing more estimable than the man of middle-age,

enjoying the gifts of health, who lets die on his lips the delicious “I love you”, which he fears to still pronounce. But let us only attribute in general to the remarkable coquetry of women the ridicule with which old men cover themselves; it is certain that a man between fifty and sixty, still very presentable, pleases women of middle age if he keeps up with fashion; and that the amiable philosopher with grey beard and bald head is instantly put out of contention, because an old lover ages, according to opinion, the woman that he loves, unless she is very young, for then the contrast of ages produces the contrary effect. What should we do then, and what side should we take? never lie, no more in our customs, our actions, than in our words;persuade ourselves that we do not deceive by six months regarding our age; that the more we try to appear that whichwe are not, the more a nothing which reveals the truth throwsus far from our factitious goal: one enjoys punishing deception and rendering justice to the truth. Let a young woman of twenty, tall, strong, robust, appear to our view, she astonishes us with a certain ineffaceable aire of youth,and we are tempted to believe, in order to avenge her on thewrongs that nature has done here, that this woman is only sixteen or seventeen. On the contrary, let a doll of forty affect the cuteness of a child, a nothing, this terrible nothing which, as I have said, always reveals the truth, makes our judgment more severe than it should be, and, in a moment, our imagination, calculating, adding, adds to her real age the amount by which she pretends to have less.

Old age, so respectable and so respected among the Greeks and Romans, was certainly exempt from the ridicules that we have just presented. Among these nations, strong through the direct influences of the vivifying star, both vices and virtues were more openly displayed; the men of these times had reciprocally an overly good opinion of each other; they thought themselves too adroit for the idea of

deceiving each other to often come to their minds86. It is doubtless for this reason that they suffered slaves whom they freed when they showed themselves worthy of being incorporated among them. They only expected lies and baseness from men who were degraded by law; they counted on true and loyal sentiments on the part of their fellow citizens. When we shall do ourselves the honor of believing ourselves above all trumpery and reciprocal dissimulation, this will be the veritable sign that we do each other justice, as we do it today in believing that we are all susceptible to being deceived by our falsely polished manners and our perfidious actions. These assaults of subtlety show an insufficiency of aplomb and of character which someday we will blush about, since we then have reasonto blush. I say then, that, for these ancients, simply the reality of recognized merit imposed consideration and respect; the crown of oak or laurel leaves, placed on the whitened head of the hero, the scholar, or the famous artist, excited the enthusiasm of these peoples; their ardent souls knew how to be impassioned; the women shared the virtues of our sex; we saw beauty, not only through amour-propre, but also through love of glory, recompense with its favors the sexagenarian philosopher; the amiable Anacreon was often a dangerous rival for an Alcibiades. . . . But we, we only play, so to speak, the parody of the true sentiments of these people predestined bynature.

For us, beauty, proud to appear in public with the stylish fop, would blush to give its arm to the scholar, to the most revered patriarch. However, this female sex, made to recompense all the virtues, is, still more than us, pulled to the enjoyments of amour-propre. Frenchmen! Crown men of genius, revere the woman who prefers them to the mannequin costumed in the latest taste; and soon, after the 86 (G): The current cunning of these peoples infallibly belongs to their decadence. The spirit of cleverness has always been the sad appanage of servitude. It is far, certainly from a modern Italian and Greek to Scipio and Aristides.

example of the Greeks and the Romans, the fire of the virtues will burn among us in every heart. Soon the insignificant pantomime of our young men and damsels will give way to reality. Old men! No longer expect to enjoy, at the same time, the fruits of wisdom and the flowers of spring; command respect from this youth which too much seduces you through its brilliant and unconsidered behaviors; it depends on you, despite its vehement instinct,since all the force of the moral and political laws lies in your hands. Let youth admire you, contemplate you, respect you; let your virtues, your experience, your pronounced character make youth bow its brow before you; then, if the respect that the amiable women have for you should inspire some more tender sentiments, love, because you are loved: but cease to degrade your white hairs, in offering your superannuated homage to the young beauty who has no idea of your perfections, and who then see in you only a ridiculous old man. O old men! Let us cease to degrade the winter of our years, the time of experience, the time that announces that soon everything is completed. Amiable and frivolous youth! Tremble at lacking in respect even once to the white hairs of the venerable man who reads your destiny in your present conduct. Without guidance what would you be? A droning swarm, wandering from flower to flower, without resting place, without assured refuge, whose honey will be each day the nourishment of the parasite wasp. This honey isthe precious store of the arts and sciences entrusted to mature age. What you were, what you are, what you will be, all is there. Respect the august temple that ennobles the destinies of man. Young and inexperienced man! Kneel before old age, if you do not wish that a future youth should also scorn your old years.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

SECOND VOLUME

Chapter 1On artists, savants and people of letters.

FIRST SECTION.

On Artists.

I begin with the arts, since they preceded, I think, the sciences and the belle lettres. The instinct which pushes man toward imitation of everything that he sees has been sufficient to promptly make some coarse artists; but the development, the refinement of the ideas which shape thescholar or the man of letters have taken considerably longerto acquire. We admired, observed the stars for a long time before calculating their periodic movements; we made formless houses, resembling mountain grottos, made coarse statues, rough pictures, music with the musette, before forming philosophical considerations regarding the passions of man and regarding all abstract subjects. The former operations were simple imitation of nature; the latter couldonly be the fruits of longer reflection; and certainly nature, preexisting all the operations of the human spirit, was imitated before being deepened in all its results. In a word, it was easier for man, still a novice with his faculties, for make the material resemblance of a man or of a flower, than to write their histories: that is, supposing that hieroglyphic writing was known in these first moments of the world.

Just as the peoples whose morality is simple and pure do not cause themselves to be noticed in the pomp of history, the record of artists is not voluminous; their history is that of their works, and their principal passion is that of their air. Rivalry between talent and talent is the moral stumbling-block that they must avoid. If they considered that two talents can never be the same, and that

where there is no similarity there should exist no rivalry, nothing would alter the agreement of their mores. A certain skeptical language is that which they most often adopt in speaking of the productions of their confreres, since the man with talent better sees than another the weak part of his rival, however great he may be. The artist alone knows the mechanism of his art; he sees in the blink of an eye howa production has been initiated, continued, and completed; he knows which idea, already known, has produced that which the public regards as being new. But let his criticism be decent; let him consider the worthy part of the work of his rival, if he wishes to be judged and treated likewise.

Under the ancien régime, artists were humiliated by the scant consideration that they enjoyed, not as artists, but as men. In that which we called the beau monde, we were onlysublime marionettes with which the nobles deigned to amuse themselves. In England one is in agreement regarding the article of consideration and regards; just as the artist buys the canvas which he pays for without ceremony, the merchant knows the price of the lessons or of the productions of a particular artist, and also pays it withoutfurther ado. The musician has no connection with the societythat he amuses, nor with the supper with which he is regaled. Our artists hold more to forms; the carriage that one lends them in order to come and return, the attentiveness of the mistress of the house, an important place at the dinner table, all this flatters them and relieves one from having to pay them in any coin but that ofpoliteness. Let them not say that they have been twenty times to a house without profit: one cannot be paid in two ways. At the point when they are considered more as men and no less as artists, they will be, with reason, on a par with England. A certain consideration was formerly refused them, they bought it with their talent; but today when political equality gives the same rights to all honest and pure men, they will require the salary that is their due. Itwas the men of letters who led them into error; they wanted to be men of the world by concealing the need for money that

for them was as urgent as among the artists. No man of letters would have dared himself to sell the book for which the product was needed for him to live.

They complained bitterly of the booksellers, and the richest among them did not dare to pay the costs and sell his edition from his house, in the fear of being regarded asa merchant. Always floating between the noble and the commoner, they scarcely dared to put their name to the work that honored them, and without which they would have been unknown in the world. Was this mixed existence fitting for men made to regulate opinion regarding all matters? To combat prejudices and to let oneself be subjugated by them –was this the conduct that one should have expected from preceptors of humankind. But let us not jump ahead, and let us continue our argument.

I have seen being born and taking place a revolution among musician artists, which preceded slightly the great public revolution. Yes, I remember, the musicians whom opinion mistreated arose all at once and rejected the humiliation that overwhelmed them. All revolutions take place by force – there is no other way for them to take place. In uprooting little by little the already overly numerous abuses, a thousand others establish themselves on the way. This is like a piece of land covered by weeds – if you only pull up a few each day, soon the land will be crammed with them. In this case, the quickest is to turn over the soil.

Under the ancien regime, performing musicians were onlyregarded as musical instruments, ready to be put back in thesame case after they had played their sonata. However, they read, and were educated like other men. An amateur musician,very distinguished, endowed with the strength of Hercules, and the leading man of his age in the practice of arms, blushed at the humiliating position of the musicians, his friends, with whom he spent his life at concerts. Saint-Georges was able to take advantage of their advice in music,

and the musicians were inflamed by his male courage. Soon each orchestra director was an intrepid man who supported the honor of his body. The public assembled at the spectacles, or rather the curs who were part of the public, often insulted the artists in the orchestras; they saw men who dared to say to them: “Come all of you to talk to us oneafter the other, you will see that we are not people whom you can insult without punishment.” The bravos of the parterre said that the musici8ans were right, and cried bravo! Another time, a once-great lord, seated in the parquet behind the musicians, said to one of them to fold upsome baggage because it was blocking his view; the musician smiled, and the gentleman continued to make remarks about his size and his broad shoulders. The next morning, our brave musician went to find him at his house, and told him very politely that he would no longer be received among his confreres, if Mr. the marquis were not good enough to give him a justification for the insults from the night before. Mr. the marquis told him that his nobility did not permit him to fight with a man such as him. ---It would be much more degrading for your nobility, the musician said to him, if you oblige me, M. the marquis, to teach you a lesson in the common way. They went to the Bois de Boulogne, the musician pierced the arm of the insolent marquis, after which he said to him: “I did not want to kill you, but simply to give you a little lesson in social harmony, which you greatly needed.” The marquis saw, finally, that a musician is a man like any other, and could not refuse his esteem to the man who had just spared his life87.

87 (G): What a difference between this expression, energetic for the time, and the flat response of Lekain, after having been insulted in a café by a gentleman.The latter giving the finger to the celebrated tragedian, said: After having served so many years, I had a hard time getting 1200 livres as a pension, and this actor has 12,000 livres in income. To which Lekain modestly responded: Do you count for nothing, monsieur, the right that you have to say this to me? No, I do not understand how the man used to acting Brutus,Nero, Mohammed could descend to this monkish tone. At the time we much praised the moderation of Lekain; today, certainly, his confreres would blush, and they should have put this passage on the stage, followed by the morale which it depicts, in order to show the Republican people what an insolent man of privilege was.

Some scenes of this type took place in various places, and considerably increased the credit of the musicians. Nothing circulates more quickly in society than courageous actions, and we all know why. The man who, correctly, has been able rid himself of opprobrium through his bravery sees, beginning the very next day, that all the visages havechanged; he was often wrong, he is often right; they never used to listen to him, at present they pay attention to him;the deformities of his body are rectified, his voice becomesmore resonant…... he is an entirely different man. But thatwhich was useful and even necessary under a government wherethe privileges of birth gave the right to certain castes to insult their peers with impunity, is abjured among men who all have the same rights. “You think to insult me by affecting distinctions, the Republican can say, you are deceived; it is the law that we have sworn to live as brothers that you profane, and this same law will avenge me for your scorn.” Rarely do kings, ministers fight, because they find it easier to have intermediaries who avenge their insults and settle their quarrels. Ah well! We are all kings, or at least we have the right to be such, if we show ourselves worthy; and our intermediaries are the laws that it has pleased us to make. Frenchmen! You do not yet know how great you are; but peace, the general peace, is not far away; a thousand foreigners who admire you will come to livein your cities; their respect for the great nation, their enthusiasm for your virtues and you courage, will soon teachyou that you are the leading people in the world; your example that men still subjugated will follow by invoking your name, will give you the correct idea of what you are. Proud of yourselves, then, and of the sacred laws of equality that you have instituted and sealed with your blood, you will no longer sway between the yoke of kings andrepublican majesty (1). The love of truth, yet more general,is what you are lacking. Perfect, then, your sublime heroism; after having been more intrepid than the Spartans in conquering your freedom, be Franks, this is your original

name; be truthful like the good Quaker, who prefers death toperjury, who sees everything in the truth, and nothing without it. Here is what remains for you to do, and believe me, amiable people, the truth, although severe, cherishes the enthusiasm that you love, which characterizes you, and which you will never abandon. All the prejudices that you have just demolished, and which are no longer, were based onthe lie; love, cherish the august truth that succeeds them. It is you who raise a throne to it; crown it with myrtles and rose; revere the sacred the idol that the emanations of your blood; there is your god in this world, adore it; the Eternal smiles on your design; he says to you that he himself is only great because he is the truth himself.

SECOND SECTION

Theater of the Arts.

There is in Paris a theater where all the arts, and consequently all the artists, are joined in order to contribute to the splendor of a single spectacle.

Il faut se rendre à ce palais magique Où les beaux vers, la danse, la musique, L'art de tromper les yeux par les couleurs L'art plus heureux de séduire les coeurs De cent plaisirs font un plaisir unique88.

VOLTAIRE.

It will not be a digression from our subject to cast a glance at everything that can improve this theater.

88 TN: One must go to this magic palace Where fine verses, dance, music The art of deceiving the eyes with colors The happiest art of seducing hearts Make a unique pleasure from a hundred pleasures.

Poetry, music, declamation89, dance , pantomime , architecture , painting, sculpture, machines, decorations, costumes ancient and modern…., all is within the purview of this theater; there is no métier that it does not employ directly or indirectly; all these subjects should be observed there separately before being joined in a single frame. One easily conceives that the proportionate joining of so many diverse talents and objects, needing to form a whole, is a difficult operation to coordinate, even when allthe genres of talents, which there bring their tribute, would be disposed to make partial sacrifices in the part concerning them. One conceives even more easily that, each talent wanting to make a mark in the ensemble, this desire to shine separately leads to the detriment of unity; and that to harmonize the amour-propre of men, especially talented men, is a moral operation more difficult to consummate than to subject all the connections of a physicalobject to their useful result.

In addition, the completion of the Louvre, today the National Palace of the Sciences and the Arts, and the perfecting of our Opera, today the Theater of the arts, are for the Parisian two subjects with which he loves to concernhimself, two enterprises unendingly proposed and never realized.

In having my operas repeated, I have often made a comparison of one part with the whole of this spectacle, which shows how difficult it is to convince everyone to makesome sacrifices in order to obtain the unique effect that one proposes. For example, if, in the musical execution, I ask for a general piano that is indicated on each notated part; which, in addition, I ask of the voice and the gesture, it is still very difficult to obtain. Everyone submits to this at first, but, no matter how short a time

89 (G): Although one does not speak at the Opera, the art of oratory belongs to its domain; for every singing actor who does not declaim properly cannot excel in recitative.

this piano should be prolonged, one hears from every corner of the theater and the orchestra, an involuntary crescendo; everyone wants to profit by the silence of his neighbor in order to make himself heard above him, and soon forte replaces piano, for everyone wants to be the only one heard.It is not even rare to see various performers asking for piano, while they sing or play with all their might; they seem to say: Shut up so they can hear me. Hide so that they can see me.

Interest is the father of the theater, (perfect) performance is its mother. Every spectacle that forgets thismaxim, or which only observes half of it, is certain to fail. The dramatic model is the poem. Everything is there; it is the procreative egg from which all the rest hatches. Everything will be well, if this first conception is good; all will be ill if it is defective. However, a poem for opera is a fabric destined to receive various embroideries: music, dances, and the decorations. If the fabric is poor, the most beautiful embroideries only produce regret in seeing them profaned and useless. If the fabric is good, butone of these embroideries shines more than it should, it conceals the fabric, casts into shadow every other embellishment, and destroys the unity. An opera can be lacking in success because an overly beautiful piece of music, an overly piquant dance step, an overly brilliant decoration are shown beginning in the first act. The most difficult procedure in the dramatic art is that of maintaining a gradation such that the attention of the spectators is maintained until the end of the drama. Only the masters of the art can have the courage (quite necessary) of sacrificing a superior piece that untamed genius produced too soon, and inappropriately, and which is only there like an hors – d’oeuvre, estimable in itself and taken separately, but blameworthy with respect to the whole.

The sensitive faculties of man are limited; if, over the course of two or three hours of spectacles, one must exhort them, and make them be born, through what means can we arrive at this, if, since the first quarter-hour, we

excite them beyond measure? Attention fatigued, our sensitive faculties exhausted, we want the curtain to fall; or the spectators applaud some accessory to the picture which should have remained in the shadows. This applause bestowed by the public on the weak part of a great subject, is, most frequently, a satire, for which the benevolent authors do not sufficiently understand the malign intent90.

But what genre of poems is fitting for the Opera? Is ita magical poem, which favors the luxury of this spectacle? The tragedy, which has a great interest? The noble comedy bringing parties? Or the drama, noble and gay at the same time, equally apt for dances? We think that each of these genres has its advantages, and that the Opera can adopt themall in order to vary the pleasures of the public. Magic has very little interest; the power of the wand overcomes all physical and moral obstacles; we know in advance that the most powerful magician will carry the day; there is cowardice in a fabulous god amusing himself with the torments of a mortal, we hate him if he abuses his power; and if love, the most powerful of the gods of the Opera, protects a moral, and makes him brave the power of another god, a degraded divinity is still a sad spectacle. Nevertheless, let us not renounce this genre, if the author of the poem as the art of interesting us. But little interest is needed for the drama, you will say, when we wantto give ourselves to the diversions. What to do, then, and who will decide on the degree of interest necessary to make this genre bearable? It is the public which, for a long time, has judged this matter. It wants interest and dances, know how to combine them; but it prefers interest without dances to dances without interest. If the drama is without action that interests, the parties, which are only brilliantaccessories, become the principal object; if the action is interesting, the parties should be subordinate to it in every point.

90 (G): Great works belong to the great theaters. Let the little ones solve their problems by giving two or three plays in the same day.

The tragedy, such as Gluck has presented it, is an imposing genre, interesting and noble, let us preserve it, but let us not multiply the performances, out of fear that the public may become habituated to too much fracas, and become blasé regarding all the more delicate genres; out of fear, further, of quickly withering the purest organs of intonation of our singers. It is to be desired that tragedy,treated less severely and more melodiously, in the way that Sacchini composed the music for Oedipus, will be multiplied at the Opera; it does not have the drawbacks of the tragedy of Gluck. Gluck, through the strength of his musical contrasts, made a drama only mediocrely provided with interest succeed, which would have withered with the music of Sacchini; but, with a poem like that of Oedipus, the musical balsam, the ideal (although cold) of this melodious music, heated by the interest of the poem, presents a precious ensemble.

The noble comedy would succeed at the Opera, if festivals were well presented there; but drama mixed with the comic has the advantage of being more varied. Let us notforget, let us never forget that

L’ennui naquit un jour de l’uniformité91.

All the scenes, the diversions can here be varied ad infinitum; the genre of which I speak is naturally conduciveto variety; this advantage is incalculable. The nobility of the Theater of the Arts is sacrificed there, some folk will say; but what does it matter, it is better to be a little less noble, and to be more amused. I concluded that all the genres are fitting for the Opera, if they are treated with interest and if they provide spectacle. Nevertheless, the Opera in itself transports us to imaginary or distant regions, and we there prefer the setting and customs that are not our own. Let them thus show us interesting faerie 91 (TN): From the Fables nouvelles by Antoine Houdar de La Motte (1672-1731).

as in the poems for Armide, Castor et Pollux; it will be quite welcome. But there is another magic that we prefer to true magic; this consists in transporting the scene for our familiar subjects to the beautiful land of Greece. There, everything is illusion, without quitting our natural sphere.The distance in time, the beauty of the climate, the fabulous religion, the strength of the passions and the characters, the brilliant mores, everything is magic for us.

A father is irritated with his daughter, who loves a poor young man, whom she has married secretly. A man of good happens to meet the young man, to his advantage; he disarms the father, and reconciles the family. The scene, set in Paris, in a merchant’s house, would only provide a bourgeois drama; set in Greece, in the household of a king, it is, word-for-word, the subject of Anacreon in the house ofPolycrates, one of the best poems of the Opera. Almost all thefamiliar subjects, Lucile, Sylvain, Nina, and a hundred others, can be metamorphosed in the same way, and with the same advantage, with regard to the theater we are discussing.

If one placed the subject of Nina at the Opera, she would be a beautiful Spartan, who has fallen in love with Alcibiades, and opposed by her father, who refuses to give herto an effeminate Athenian. Imagine the accents of a Spartanwoman, driven made by love! Let them say, after this, that subjects fitting for the Opera are difficult to find! The greater difficult which I perceive for the Theater of the Arts is that of harmonizing the amour-propres of the number of artists in every genre of which it is composed. This is the true labyrinth for which the guiding thread seems impossible to find. Living in a continual fairyland, one would say that they have acquired its mores. From the leading role, to the most ignored artist, everyone thinks that they are the keystone without which the Opera would fall into ruin; all the parts of the administration are censured pitilessly there; everyone corrects the job of the other, and neglects his own duty; to the degree that the public crowns the success of an artist, he becomes

intractable; does the public withdraw its favor? He becomes a good man, and there is always excess in one manner or the other of behaving. Never is this harmonious people in agreement, unless while singing or dancing. There are some wise men who deplore these intrigues; but, not being able tofight against the floods of this stormy sea, they keep silence, raise their eyes to the azure sky of the backdrops,and sigh for the general order which cannot be achieved. Therevolution, which changed everything in France, had no effect on the mores of this spectacle; the subjects of the Opera may be Republicans in the city, but they return to their esprit de corps once breathing the air in the wings offstage. One would think that instability of character, natural to women, should render those of this theater more difficult to govern than the men; no, they are as light, as susceptible to amour-propre, once it is a question of talent; and they join with this forms less sweet, less amiable than the women towards those for whom one must be indulgent, and to those which we love to remind that granting a favor is using one’s sweetest right. Amongst so many weaknesses, for which the source is always that of pleasing us; among so many talents, charms, such seduction, how to appear severe! We easily understand that a reunion ofall these enchanting talents subjugates even the authority that directs them. If one complains of the insubordination of a subject, the chief promises to punish him: but he goes to the spectacle, seems him covered with the accolades of the public whom he inebriates with pleasure; the chief is disarmed, he runs to embrace him without being able to complain. What to do, then? order is still necessary. I think there is only one great hidden, inaccessible authority, a man of weight having returned from the errors of his passion, although loving the arts (where is this man?I do not know), who could maintain moral order at the Opera.Let him have the courage to deprive himself of a subject, whatever his talent may be, if he does subject himself to the common rule; let him be able to reward through some flattering present the one who makes him notable through histalents, his wisdom and his exactitude. For a long time the

indecent tactic of the affected manners of the theaters has been known to all; according to the circumstance, one whispers in another’s ear, such and such person will be sickin three days; although he is bearing up well; or he will give his notice, that he does not wish to take nor to receive. The fear of losing a great talent should not cause the authorities to waver; all the great artistes who go to make themselves admired in the provinces, only maintain their reputation for a very few years; they know that if thejournals in the capital stop talking about them, the departments, and even foreign countries, do not seek them out with the same hurry. The reputation that they have in Paris travels with them; if it ceases in the center, it is extinguished rapidly in the whole circumference. The more eminent the talent that one will be forced to deprive oneself of, the more the subaltern talents, without realizing it, will make an effort to be reasonable. Caprice ends where authority is inflexible; everything bends before the law when it is just and general. With regard to visible and secondary authority; with regard to the director, if he is not supported, as I have just said, by a greater authority, inflexible and almost unapproachable by the artists, I pity him, if he is a wise man; he will start oncemore, each day, the hardest course in practical philosophy that a man can take in this world. Surrounded by prestigiousfigures, by the most seductive talents, by all the graces, all the charms of the female sex, studied, and brought to their perfection, let him be just, let him preserve his reason, if he can. But the man who devotes himself to this supernatural state is already judged; he loves the delirium into which he voluntarily sinks himself; always compelled while fighting with himself, he is only one spring for the interaction of all the parts of the whole; if he knew, if hefelt the blows he is prey to, he would fly far from the charming den of madness, where unendingly he is torn by distress, where the charm of prestige fetters him.

THIRD SECTION

The Ancients and the Moderns placed in opposition.

In order to know what it would be desirable for artists, the learned, and the men of letters of our days to be, let us see, in summary, what they have been during the centuries that have preceded our own. These reflections willbe useful for us to compare ourselves to our models.

The first artists in Greece, inflamed by the most beautiful of climates, having had to create almost everything, with few masterworks to imitate, gave themselvesto love of truth and the beautiful ideal92. Their mythological religion gave them gods alternatively charming,imposing, and terrible to paint, to sculpt, to describe, andwhich were as favorable to their imagination as the saints of the Christian paradise are fitting for chilling it.

We have noted that it was at their birth, or a little while thereafter, that human productions announced themselves with the greatest brilliance. The poetry of Homer, the sculpture of Praxiteles and of Phidias, the painting of Apelles and of Zeuxis are still the masterworks that we admire, or that we regret only knowing through an illustrious tradition. It is not the same for the exact science for which the overly exalted imagination of these peoples was harmful. It is also only in these sciences that we have corrected our masters. It was fitting for us to descend into the folds of analysis, just as they lost themselves in fictions. Their algebra was a poetry, ours is a cold calculation.

The Roman artists followed the footsteps of the Greek artists. Poetry, sculpture, painting made no progress among them, no more than the exact sciences, nor philosophy.

92 (G): The great precepts of the arts will always come to us from the land of spices, said abbé Arnaud.

However, the Romans claimed to be more eloquent than the Greeks; it is up to us to compare Demosthenes and Cicero: wewill see, perhaps, that, regarding true eloquence, the former is to the latter, as three are to one.93

Let us join together now the beautiful centuries of antiquity, and let us see whether, with regard to morality, the sciences achieved their true goal; that is to say, whether, through love of order and truth, they led men as close as possible to general happiness.

The whole world will be the domain of educated folk, when amour-propre, inherent to talents, will have ceded all its rights to love of order and of truth. But, in order to command peoples, it does not suffice to love nature, one must, on the contrary, have the courage to resist it, to violate it in its details, and almost in each individual. Toobtain general order, which, certainly, is not in the natureof men all born dominators of their peers, every government needs an active force which represses abuses which are always being reborn. The falsity, which we will call politics, is necessary with political neighbors, without which treaties would be broken before they existed.: it is even necessary in the interior of the State. To establish a low, such a means would revolt the people, and another one, which leads to the same goal, undergoes no such difficulty. Is it the learned one in the exercise of his talents who candevote himself to this painful work? No, through his writings, he can enlighten those governing, but it remains for them to make use, according to circumstances, of the precious documents of philosophy. The educated man should hold the leading positions in the State, but he will cease to be a philanthrope in order to be able to govern; then he will see how different it is to write precepts or to put them into practice. In sighing for his dear study, for the philosophical meditations for which the most eminent

93 (G): We are not speaking of other philosophical knowledge; everyone knows that Cicero was a well of science.

position cannot console him, he nevertheless owes the sacrifice of his time and his inspirations to the public good, if this is required of him. For the rest, the secret vow of the savant is chiefly that of reigning over public opinion. In order to succeed in this, in order to be considered by men, he knows that one must frequent them little; he knows that every admirer who has smiled at him twice wants to be repaid for his suffrage, without which criticism often replaces praise.

Here, it seems to me, is where the savants of Athens and Rome profaned the sciences, and their glory, although immortal. All anti-sectarians of each other, it is through amour-propre that they combat each other; they play with thescience that should be their métier; they yearn for the title of savant without dreaming of making themselves better; it is in public places that the cynic, wrapped in his mantle, plays, so to speak, his comedy; it was in a tunny of wine that Diogenes disputed his prescience with therichest residents of Athens. There, and ostentatiously, no doubt, he was prouder than the devastating Alexander, whose offers he would refuse, saying “Move out of my sun, that is all that I ask of you.” In seeing the mania of the savants of these ancient times in arguing over all the points of philosophy, one can only be quite astounded. Let us say it: they were as ridiculous as our theologians quibbling from morning to night over the dogmas of the Christian religion, or the formerly noble seriously discussing the science of the coat of arms. But at least the ancient philosophers werefrank in their delirium 94 ; they would agree that they wereweak in one part of their talent, and that they were superior in another one. No consideration held them back; they avowed that they were vanquished by their passions likegreat children who weep; an infinity of gods presided over all good things, all ills, and it was they whom they blessedor accused when they were happy or unhappy. This frankness,

94 (G): This shows that the astuteness of the Italians of our day is an effect of their superstitious government, more than of their climate.

this irresistible love for truth, this sublime, sometimes ridiculous, but always true abandon of the Greeks and the Romans shows them to us as being just as great as we have been petty through dissimulation and lying. For the rest, the morality of Socrates and that of Marcus Aurelius were healthy and moderate; they should be admired always, as we revere them ourselves. It is the spirit of God which reigns in these immortal writings; the duties of the old man, thoseof the man of our day are traced there in an indelible way; this is the morality of all men, it is that of all centuries, past, present, and to come.

Now, let us cast still a glance on the centuries of ignorance, for which the beginning was so favorable to the lie, and the end so terrible to liars. Let us see in the North educated men subjected to the ineptitude of the great,who only receive them in their courtly gatherings in order to have them prognosticate the future, to sing their loves, their feats, and to serve them as buffoons. But, through anirresistible love for truth, the lettered, although subject in appearance, will always combat their natural enemies, thekings and the great; chiefs of all abuses, all prejudices, of almost all the vices, they, more than anyone else, provide weapons to morality, to philosophy: the prey is too fine to not pursue it at all. Nevertheless, after the renaissance of letters, from François I to the reign of Louis XVI, the savants, and especially people of letters, towhom, as I have noted, we owe so much, could not see the brilliant prerogatives of the nobility without wanting to share in them; they wanted to be the first, the noblest among the people of talents; and the artist, simpler, more naïve, closer to nature, which he unceasingly imitates, seemed to them to belong to an inferior class. They do not say this, but they let it be felt; they approached the greatas much as they could, but were protected in this; their wives were only admitted rarely, and in order to let them court the duchesses. If the nobles had been able to descend in good father to the people of letters; or, something stillmore difficult, if the people of letters had been able to

basely caress them, the revolution would have been delayed; the great would not have perished so soon. The women of the literary figures thus saw those of the financiers, and neverthose of the artists, or, if they saw them, an imaginary line of demarcation was noted. The lettered never forgot to say Monsieur de in naming the man of letters, and the artist was simply designated by his name. The would say: “Monsieur de Poinsinet and Philidor will give an opera.” However, the firstwas a pygmy, and the second a man with an extraordinary vigor of mind. They knew it, they said it, but they followedthe custom which they did not combat at all, and which they favored, on the contrary. This dramatic author pretended only to work in order to oblige his musician, and for the sake of the art; but he was always the first to run to the box office. The lie pierced every word in the prefaces: one did not want to have them printed, friends of the author hadforced him, because the manuscript had been stolen, disfigured; one did not count at all on the success of a work made without pretentions, while a criticism, an epigramon this same work, caused the modest author almost to have afit of apoplexy. Ah, great me! Approach the truth; be more children of nature, and you will be greater; remember the effort that you have in order to make something worthwhile. How many thousands of erasures does a mediocre work cost you, for which the basic ideas were provided to you by another, sometimes even by a subaltern who was unable to develop them! What good is this literary supremacy, which was only recognized by the people of letters? To strike the great with lightning, to scorn the petty, does this not meanwe wish to reign alone? What use was this affected silence, this more than philosophical calm of a certain savant, sincean instant later he went to the press, and proved to us thathe was only a man like any other, and who was more doubtful than another, since he had more to know? Did we then find striking connections between his manners and his proofs of talent? No, the envelope was ripped, the man appeared, we loved him, we still admired him; but we would have loved himmore if he had only announced what he had to have.

Let us be fair, however, it was only among the true savants that one still found bonhomie and simplicity; but, among men of letters in general, they were not candid enough, the esprit de corps corrupted them. If he who was atthe head of his own (for the people of letters had a head that they revered, and the artists, through amour-propre, have always been sufficiently maladroit to not recognize this at all), if, I say, the one whom his brother savants recognized for their chief, was, after some occurrence, replaced by another, the physiognomy of the first, his discourse, the sound of his voice, his way of being, too much vehemence or too much calm, announced that his fortune had changed. I would have liked some imperturbility in such men. He who had his eye on an academic chair changed his tonthe instant he was seated there. Piron, Diderot, who were worthy, without contradiction, to be incorporated in the academy, but who, in their youth, had composed some scandalous writing which distanced themselves from it, were affected differently by this exclusion. The former was continually expressing his spite through epigrams95; the latter did not even seem to imagine that the academy existed. They were irritated in different ways, and the public was as well, in seeing these two formidable men deprived of a position which they were owed. Heat, vehemenceof elocution, concentrated taciturnity, are the effects of the genius which unfolds itself or reflects; each person, according to his character, must have a way of being; but, let us be fair, scientific despotism was generally the appanage of people of letters.

No one has spirit but us and our friends,

was too visibly written on their faces. Their wives, especially, were lacking in moderation, and covered themselves in ridicule through their pretentions to knowledge; not to mention a hundred petty emulators who

95 (G): We know that he made this epigram for himself: “Here lies Piron, who was nothing, Not even an Academician”.

courted them in order to have access to their husbands. Yes,the most imperious passion of man, amour-propre, reversed the accustomed order of young people: they ordinarily court husbands in order to arrive at their wives – here it was theopposite. Let us abandons all these manias of privileged bodies, let the institute which replaces all the academies, and of which I will speak soon, watch unceasingly over the sacred fire of people of merit; this sacred fire is their amour-propre, which is irritated, is consumed without spreading light, if the strictest, the most real equality does not subsist between the savants of every kind. Why tones, manners, appearances, when only the truth is necessary in order to be great? But the new regime will dissipate, in part, these fictions. I have always loved the people of letters with whom I have lived a long time, and who have taught me to reflect; but the line of demarcation which they put between themselves and the most distinguishedartists, caused me pity. My arms wanted to spread themselveswide when approaching them; but their silence, a word as worthy as cruel, held back the impulse of my afflicted heart. What! I would have wanted to say, is not the divine Pergolesi worth as much as the divine Racine?96 Are not Raphael, Michelangelo worth as much as Voltaire and Rousseau? Once again, why this literary supremacy? Why this difference between genius and genius? Is not he who makes worth as muchas he who says what should be done? Why, if one speaks of the arts, impose silence on myself for saying louder what I have just said more quietly? Why, I wanted to say to them, do you think that you are messieurs, and artists only a little more than laborers? Here are the inconsequences whichweaken the consideration that one owes to modern people of letters. I do not fear being contradicted by the facts – half of France, still existing, was witness to these. But these prejudices were those of the period; the government gave the mores – it even influences those who censure its abuses.

96 (G): If the man of letters who understands me smiles at this question, it isbecause he appreciates one and does not know the other.

FOURTH SECTION

Reunion of the Sciences and the Arts in the NationalInstitute.

Yes, I repeat, educated men in every area, those who write well, who speak eloquently, those who move the passions through the language of melody, those who make fabric or marble speak, those who raise majestic monuments or who preserve ancient traditions, those who preserve the life of men and of useful animals, those who astonish the people through their calculations and their astronomical predictions, those who measure the earth, those, finally, who explain everything which is included in the earth, and which covers its surface…, are, most certainly, the men who direct the opinion of the human species, who know its spirits, who can destroy errors, manifest truths, and whose good examples should attract other men. If their conduct, iftheir actions are in accordance with their masterworks that the people admire, if the members of the National Institute where sit the legislator, the governor who is a man of letters, the warrior who is a geometer, live fraternally with each other, scrupulously seeing that one science never takes preponderance over another, and banishing, above all, the cold politeness which, even while saying my colleague or my confrere, denies brotherhood, let us not doubt that the Institute will attract the great majority of the nation to republican sentiments, and towards the truth in everything. Just as the influences of the moon, or the currents of the poles, give the first impulse to the tides of the sea, an impulse only halted by the rocks, or which comes to die on the sands; there is, in each type of government, a moral power which gives the tone to the leading classes, those to their inferiors, and from one to the next down to the least educated classes. In modern Rome one was an abbé, at

Versailles one needed to be amiable and gay, if you had the colic or an abscess in the lungs. Formerly in Berlin one hadto be a military man, pretend to be a philosopher or play the German flute. But since there are, in the State, no longer king nor flatterers who obey him, and all positions are temporary, the truth must reign with a purer light, for one is oneself, whom one dares to see with one’s own eyes, shining with one’s own merit, without imitating anyone. But let us remember that in whatever state of things there are stumbling blocks to avoid. We have been ignorant, and have been serfs under the kings. We became educated, and have been free: let us avoid the stumbling blocks attached to liberty. Experience must have taught us that preaching ignorance is to demand slavery; preaching education is to increase the amour-propre of the men who are instructed, until, having arrived at an eminent degree of human knowledge, they renounce this same amour-propre which had deceived them in showing them an imaginary goal of perfection to which no mortal can attain. But preaching truth is to reconcile everything: it can only be the one sure support of mores; it can only be harmful to the friendsof error and to the despot, who want to take for themselves the part of liberty which is common to all men.

The education of youth, which we have already discussed; at a more advanced age, joining the assembly of savants, as the reward for those who have acquired distinguished talents, and the influence of spectacles, are the three most powerful vehicles. The eyes of the governmentshould be fixed on these objects, which alone can create andentertain the public spirit. Yes, the theaters contribute infinitely to the construction of fraternal and republican mores; it is there, I have said in my Essays on Music, that each pays his admission at the door, and goes to have a lesson in morality in the hall. Will we need to exclude fromour theaters the plays which will not be according to our new mores? No, the low courtier bowing before his master, whom he fawns over; the valet treated as a slave, will be lessons as fruitful for the republican as the representation

of one of the events of our revolution. What domestic, in a republican state, will not be indignant in imagining himselfstill in the place of this dull valet? in recalling the timeof his former existence? The dramatic art has need of contrasts: the Greeks had helots whom they disdained; the Greeks, the Romans had slaves to whom they granted liberty for the price of their good conduct. Let us have neither onenor the other at present, but let us seek them elsewhere in order to oppose them to our philanthropy and to our love fortruth. We will not put our slaves on the stage, but alas, what vices, what vile men will always remain for us to combat, and to put into opposition to the true republican!

Let us not be afraid to go into some details here regarding the National Institute of Sciences and Arts, its customs, is receptions, its public and private meetings. Allis useful, nothing is pointless; given that it is a questionof the most respectable corps of savants ever, and which will have so much influence on mores. There, all the shininglights are assembled, everything is known there from the center of the earth to the stars, from the mite to man. No book exists that is not found in its archives, no idea has been conceived in this world over four thousand years, whichis not in the head of one of its members. Young man who loves science, in entering this august assembly, if you are not gripped by the respect that it imposes, never will your first impulses of genius be realized.

We know this: the intrigue, the protection of the courthad much to do witih the elections to the old French Academy; a great number of educated, whom intrigue had dishonored, were never presented there. The legislative body, which created the first kernel of the institute, then the institute itself, called upon them97. But the greater part is advanced in age, and nature will soon call them to

97(G): If men respectable for their knowledge were not called to the Institute at its creation, this was not because merit was unknown; but we feared their attachment to ancient academic customs that we wanted to reform.

her breast. I wonder if one can twice, and in such a small period of time, find the same number of equally educated men, equally respectable in all regards, that almost an entire century of works and experience has formed? It is thus evident that by disappearing in a few years, they will leave a great void; that if one wishes to replace them immediately, the choices will be mediocre, and that it wouldbe better to leave vacant positions, even many vacant positions, at the institute. General emulation will increasethe supply; these vacant seats will say to active youth: “Weare awaiting you; no intriguer will take this place, be worthy of it, and it is yours.”

It is desirable that one dispense the candidates from the visits that they make to the members of the institute inorder to be admitted; when there is a vacant position, one should not search for someone to fill it; if there is a man of superior talent, he is known, he is ever present in the minds of the members who desire him. But (for the institute should never turn someone down) the aspirant can write a brief letter to each member in order to let him know that should the choice fall upon him, he would accept the vacant place gratefully. Without these precautions, this learned society will degenerate through the quantity of obscure names which will be placed on its benches. Although one might think this, it is not the institute which gives the reputation, it is the illustrious reputations which make that of the institute.

One day I was present at the sitting of the French Academy; I found myself next to an Englishman who asked manyquestions of a Frenchman, his guide. What is that one’s name? — Buffon. — I enjoy seeing him. That one? — D'Alembert. — I know him by reputation. This other? — Marmontel. — Fine. This other one? — So-and-so. — What has he done? — But ... but. ... — Never mind, never mind. let’s go. And this other? — I think…that…. Never mind, never mind. ---The what has he doneof this Englishman did not seem to me at all inconsiderate;

everyone man whose reputation had not arrived at his island seemed to him to be an intruder for whom he grimaced, while saying “Never mind…..”. Foreigners appear more frequently than ever at the sessions of the institute; let us try then,to make them happier than they ever were at the academy. One thing, however, as praiseworthy as it was well observed,was remarkable there, which was the equality which reigned between members. Except for the king, who was its protector,and who never appeared there, the princes, the bishops, the gentlemen and the bourgeois, men of letters, were equal there in rights and even in public opinion; but once they had issued from the meeting place of the sessions, the prejudice of inequality was reborn. Equality was that much more striking at the academy in that, except for there, in no part of France was the nobility confused with the commoners; this hommage rendered to talent perhaps saved humanity from eternal slavery. Since, under the reign of thekings, equality was reserved for a refuge in the academy, today that man is free in France, we must, with the greatestcare, distance from the Institute everything that could wound equality. At the academy there was no distinction of first, second and third classes; all the members belong to the first class, although d’Alembert was a geometer, Buffon naturalist, Mably and Condillac, literary men and profound logicians, the Abbé of Lille a poet, and Marmontel, poet and moralist…… The division of the classes of the institute is necessary, one will say, since a single establishment includes both the science and arts. Yes, division, such as it is, is needed for the arts and science which have connection can assemble on fixed days, and communicate new ideas to each other; but the denominations of first, second and third classes are useless. It suffices to say, Class ofmathematical and physical sciences, Class of moral and political sciences, Class of literature and fine arts. The republican equality which should be extended everywhere, even in the sciences and the arts, would have been more respected; and when, once a year, one would have drawn lots to know which sciences or which arts would be designated first, in the book of regulations of the institute; when

each class would have done the same for its various arts andscience, this operation would have been very convenient. What! If another Homer appeared, he would be in the third class! If the talents of Corneille, Racine, Molière, La Fontaine, Boileau, were reborn, they would be in the third class! And Demosthenes, as a politician, would be in the second class; and, as orator and declaimer, at the tail of the third! One may be astounded that the committee on public education of the legislative assembly of this time had not foreseen that a primordial line of demarcation between the science could one day be a seed of dissension between savants. The one whoedited this classification was often stymied by the wealth of choices, I am certain; this indecision warned him of the uselessness and danger of his work. And, in being rigorous in his desire to honor each science, each art according to its degree of importance or utility, which, in this case, was displaced, do we not know that if the talents are unequal, the men who exercise these talents are themselves so different, so unequal in faculties, that they re-establish equilibrium? Who, moreover, will be able to tell us, which is more useful to society, he who calculates the movements of the stars, or he who presses the multitudes to go to spectacles, in place of going to kill themselves in houses of gambling and libertinage? In noting this inconvenience, I am not speaking for myself, who am very honored to be counted among the next to last in the arts of the third class. I say further, declamation, which is the model for dramatic music, can, in the system adopted, march before us; but will the physicist who is able to calculate the vibrations of the sounds thus be in the first class, andthink himself placed two degrees above the musician who knows how to do what which the other is only able to calculate? There is such an interconnection between all the science that none should have pre-eminence. Such and such a poet, I repeat, is so far above such and such a mathematician, or astronomer, that one exposes oneself to ridiculous results by assigning distinctions between the arts. I know that it is the art and not the artists that we have wished to distinguish; but men are so adroit in amour-

propre; they so naturally, so adroitly confuse their dear person with their savoir-faire; they so easily take the wordfor the thing, that one cannot too much avoid providing themwith opportunities. And, what is yet more dangerous, and comes to the same thing, is the danger of halting the progress of the sciences by chilling general emulation. One must no longer neglect the material means of success; one must on the contrary attach oneself to these asto the things for which all others depends. At the public sessions, for example, the tribune should only be occupied by those members in a condition to read well, and to make themselves understood. A lack of interest most often comes from orators who lack the necessary organ or grace: what I say is so true, that when a member of the institute, alreadyknown, walks toward the tribune, the public knows in advancethat it will be bored or not, no matter the interest of the subject that will be considered. In order to fix the public attention, the memos that one reads in these sessions shouldbe of general interest. One must likewise avoid frivolous and abstract matters; to be able, in a word, to reconcile three things at once: pleasure, edification, and academic dignity.

At the private sessions98 I do not at all like the silence which reigns after a member has made some lecture. Ido not want, God forbid, the customary compliments like those prodigally bestowed on musical performers in private companies; they are too general, too full of adulation for people of spirit; but a tepid silence, while a lecture has been as interesting as possible, is a stoicism as unpardonable as it is shattering for the man who has just read and has labored for a half-hour to obtain the support or advice of his confreres. This glacial silence always reminds me, and in spite of myself, of Molière’s Monsieur Josse. 98 (G): If the internal operations of the institute were political secrets, I would reproach myself of speaking of them in any way; but the subjects with which it is concerned are pure, they do not fear censure: nevertheless, like everything that comes from the hand of men, they are susceptible to improvement.

Why should not the president, who, has had the time, during the lecture to anticipate the judgement of the learned listeners, sometimes say: Confrere, your lecture has interested the class; moral health is there joined to the purest diction: or, one could not render with more clarity such an abstract topic; ….one would then hear alittle chorus of voice which would say: this is true, and the good old man would then go contentedly to render to his spouse, to his friend waiting at his house, this instant of enjoyment. At the second customary lecture, one would be more severe, I agree.

One sometimes approves, someone will say. — Yes, the plays in verse; and that shows that, even at the institute, we love that which amuses us; but never, or almost never, the fragments of learned, serious, or moral works. The members of the institute are men, and more men than the others; their amour-propre must have some payoff. But here, as in public sessions, the reader should have a sonorous voice and a clear pronunciation, without which no lecture can interest us. This is like good music poorly performed, it wearies as much as it gives us regret that we cannot appreciate it. The respectable members who chants in a corner, with respect to the position of the majority, interests recognition, but often wearies, and no man is ableto twice pardon one who has wearied him. What to do? Do we always have someone in a state to be able to, or to wish to take charge of reading for another? One must thus have threesecretary-readers, one for each division, chosen with considerable care, who will be entrusted with this task eachtime that an author requests it; they will do more good, they will contribute more than one thinks to the propagationof light; they will render the public and private sessions more interesting, the members more assiduous; they will moreoften arouse the desire to show completed work, or projectedplans99. Do we not see that Montvel, Molé, declaimers by 99 (G): Is it not dangerous to share with people of letters one’s ideas and one’s still-incomplete plans? On the contrary, it means to take the time and alert one’s confreres that one is busy with treating this subject. The sciences would gain by this as well, if the desire to treat the same subject were awoken in some others by this announcement, for the best work would carry the day. Here

profession and members of the institute for this fine are, never miss their goal? Périgord, Chénier, Prony, Ducis, La Cépède andsome others – do they ever leave the tribune without our regrets at not listening to them even longer? There are manymen who have things to tell us, and to teach us, and who, through lack of an organ, or a fine organ belonging to someone else which they could make use of, delay in sharing their productions with us. These positions for secretary-lecturers would be very sought-after, and by educated men, we can be certain; for, after having rendered such importantservices to members of the institute, after having adorned their production with all the graces of eloquence, they would themselves become members of the institute in this part of the arts100. Finally, the private sessions of the institute should be open in the afternoon, rather than in the evening. I know that the representative of the people, the magistrate, members of the institute, are busy with their functions at this hour, but here one should only consider the general convenience, and of the greatest necessity: the man of letters or the artist, advanced in age, are almost all in poor health, they should make this little journey at midday; to make them brave the fogs and frosts, so dangerous during the night, and so frequent in Paris, is to overly endanger their precious existence. Thereis no man working in the arts and sciences who does not makea promenade, who does not given himself several hours of relaxation before his dinner: these functions, this salutaryregime would be fulfilled by going to the institute.

After having shown, in the preceding chapter, that the philosophers of the ancien régime, although always concernedwith repressing the amour-propre of the great, in recalling each object of morality toward the truth, were themselves is what every man of letters, who loves the sciences for themselves, should desire. 100 (G): One of the following chapters discusses the dangers of eloquence; but Iin no way think that it is applicable to the educational subjects which are the matter here.

infatuated with the distinctions and privileges that they condemned; after having shown that the omnipotence of the court only allowed them to express their opinions with care,and that finally (one must agree) one cannot in the same manner be a philosopher for a king and in a republic, let ussay, and repeat without ceasing, that the general impulse toward fraternal mores depends almost entirely on unity, equality, fraternity, which must be established among the savants of the institute, whose example will have an influence on all men. Let us dare to sketch the seductive picture that men educated in all the sciences, in all the arts, alone are able to offer to republicans and to all the peoples who await education and their liberty.

The great revolution that has just taken place in the moral world is a natural result of education, no one doubts this at present; it is for scholars to consolidate this; it is for scholars of every kind to show, through their good examples, that this last revolution is the only good one, the only one which has its principles in nature. What have we done, if the men to come still detest each other through the prejudice of pride? If they lie, deceive each other through misunderstood interest, and kill each other through vanity? If these crimes, these vices born from ignorant society, are not repressed by the regenerate man, what have we gained by changing the morality of the world? It would have been worth remaining slaves, if, after this revolution we do not become better and fairer to each other. One wouldconclude then, and correctly, that man is an egotist, a beast of burden, destined to be subjugated, muzzled, and whipped by a despot, who has no other rights than what we allow him to take. But no, it is impossible that the domain of reason should have the same results as that of ignorant nobility. Proud prejudices have reigned long enough, the truth will succeed them, and we should expect everything from this pure source. As much through amour-propre as through interest, ignorance enthroned should cause dread forsavants; the latter, arrived at the highest point of glory, naturally love their proselytes. Kings had an interest in

favoring ignorance in order to enchain men; scholars, on thecontrary, will multiply light in order to increase their political strength. They regard all honest industries as precious; they will see with appreciation the product of themost obscure laborer as being indispensable to the greater whole. While our names are written in the temple of memory, they will say, such a man, very useful, is forging a nail ashe has been doing every minute for forty years! Let us no longer argue about the genealogy of the arts, nor about their levels of utility, for they are all indispensable and born one from another; all are rungs which help us to climb to Parnassus or to the temple of Minerva. The dramatic poet needs the comedian; the observer of the stars needs the optician, and the carpenter who makes a ladder for him. All the talents are brothers, without, however, wanting to compare Descartes to a shoemaker; but all are necessary to the industrious man who, in spite of himself, invents without ceasing, and thus gives himself new needs. No talentis absolutely necessary, if we return man to the forests; but, in society, all talents are necessary,

1. For the circle of human knowledge to be complete;2. For execution, in everything, to closely follow

invention; 3. Because the otiose man is too dangerous to society;4. So that each man may know how to do what another

cannot, and so that thus some may find in the labors ofothers that which they cannot do themselves.

All the mechanical talents contribute so much to satisfying our needs, that a link would be lacking in the great chain of known things, if a single métier were lost. With regard to the useful and agreeable arts, I dare to say that if one of them had been unknown until today, and if it were suddenly discovered, our delirium would be such that we would forget all the others for a moment in order to devote ourselves to the joy that this discovery would provide us. What astonishment was provided by the invention of printing!The discovery of the compass? Let us remember our transports

at the sight of the first aerostat101? We had constantly seensmoke and substance lighter than the atmospheric air rise; we decide to fill a sack, and we see a new globe traveling the heavens. If flame, which by its nature rises into the air, was almost entirely enclosed and maintained in a balloon of asbestos, it would show us the same phenomenon. If we imagine music to be still unknown, what would have been our delight, if, such a globe, still unknown, and surrounded by a hundred musicians forming the most deliciousconcert, had descended in one of our public gardens? This harmonious glove, which should ravish men with admiration – this is the republic of the sciences and the arts; each member should contribute to the general harmony; if, in the institute, one science, one art, wanted to usurp supremacy, let it be struck with anathema, and relegated by itself to another precinct102. If, more than another, one savant pretends to contribute to the general glory of the sciences; if his influence increases while diminishing that of the others; if he imposes on timid men, and already more respect accompanies him, let him be invited to renounce his position, let him be, as destructor of equality, struck by ostracism; let him to go shine alone in a village. In a society of savants, who join together all knowledge, all titles are equal, since one is strong where the other is feeble. What matters is that the famous artist speaks without overmuch correctness in his discourse? See the masterwork that he has created – in a thousand years it willbe admired nevertheless. What does it matter that the geometer is cold and monotonous in his declamation – let us admire the precision which reigns in the tiniest details of

101 TN: balloon.102 (G): For some time I have heard mute talk about a division in the Institute.I hope that the majority of member who constitute it will unite their efforts toprevent this. But, if it never takes place, I haughtily predict that the scientific aristocracy will be reborn; that this admirable establishment will lose all its majesty, and that the proud motivators of this division will be thedestroyers of the science, the arts, and the happiness of the public.

his conceptions. What matters is that the poet, carried awayby his imagination, wounds the laws of cold analysis? Let usadmire the impulses of his genius, which travels throughout the universe in a quatrain. Each talent has particular qualities which carry it unavoidably towards the defects which are close by; to be correct and minutious with heat, burning with a mathematical precision, are things as improbable as probity without veracity; this is wanting two things at once, it is wanting to reunite opposites, which only approach each other when they change their nature. The institute, you will say, will undergo the same change as thenation of which it forms a part; like it, it will preserve or will lose the fraternal sentiments of equality. This is not what I desire, I would like the institute to be the temple where the sacred fire of the republican genius was preserved, and that one should not ever enter nor leave without remembering that France is free.

Illustrious men, whose talents honor the nation and your century, be the support of universal truth, and of the fraternal sentiments that I invoke unceasingly in this writing. You are all equal, since you are the elite of educated men in all the sciences and the arts. Alone, what would you be? Weak separate members of the robust body whichgives you a strong existence. No talent is inferior to yours, since all are equally necessary to the general construction of the sciences, and since the man who knows a thing the best is unavoidably a rare man. You are too great,for anything to cause you umbrage; but the sun, as majestic as it is, has need, they say, of the vapors it attracts in order to maintain its fires. You are modest regarding your own merit, for you are savants; but this would not be sufficient to suppose an equal merit for those who practice a science, an art for which you possess only the theory, andnot the practice. If experience teaches us to be suspicious regarding the things that we know the best, should we be less so regarding those for which we have only an imperfect knowledge? I have no doubt about it: there is the same distance between Lagrange and the paver of streets, than

between David and the painter of the blue-dial; and the crowns of David and Lagrange, weighed in the same balance, would be in equilibrium, and would render it immobile.

To join in a single place the most educated men in all the sciences and the arts is perhaps the most sublime enterprise, but also the boldest that we have attempted since the moral of societies has existed; this means puttingthe essence of the human spirit to the test of amour-propre.If it departs, if it deviates from the principles of unity, if a moral good results that one never sees, it is done; philosophy loses its rights to our trust; everything that ithas promised for four thousand years is illusory. One will think that each philosopher spoke only for himself, did not have the general good as his object, and that man must stillfall once more into servitude, if the best of men are unablegive to the world, which they have just changed and which they direct, an example of fraternal mores along with the precepts of all the sciences. Today, more than ever, every man says to us: “What does your science do for me, if you humiliate me through your knowledge? Let me drive my plow, and don’t disturb the sweet quietness of my ignorance.” Today, I tell you, when the detours of amour-propre are known and recognized, to try to separate the example from the precept is to want the impossible, is to want to jump farther than one’s shadow. The priests whom one reproached for immoralities, anwered us: “Do what we say, and do not look at what we do.” But the times in which one preached ignorance in order to profit by it, when one grew fat while preaching abstinence, when one promised men another world inorder to take power over their goods in this one, are now passed. Only morality which comes from the heart has the right to persuade us; and from the most cunning politician governing a State, to the most ignorant Capuchin who preaches in a village, if the actions of the preacher are not in accordance with his discourse, he scandalizes us, rather than convincing us. Such is the final result, the final analysis of the more or less educated man: after

having been deceived over the eighteen centuries of our ear by the great and the priests

Il veut des actions et non pas des paroles103.

He expects the piece from the sample that one shows him; until that moment he only believes conditionally, he managesa gap between doubt and evidence, a way in which he can escape being deceived.

What a touching and patriarchal picture is that of all the savants, forming a philanthropic chain from the ancient to the new world! With what respectful esteem they will cover themselves, if each talent sincerely honors those who surround him in order to be honored himself! If he believes,finally, that there is no real choice in pre-eminence between the links in a chain. Will not this commerce of a just tribute attract all men to a single communion of thoughts and opinions? Great men of our century, whom times gone by will bring together and confuse in a single point with those who preceded you and those who will be born in the future; you who will live in posterity as you will repose together in an august Pantheon, yes, you were made tolove each other, and to have but one soul! If only I could see your reunited dwellings! If only I could see you living together and drinking the nectar of the gods that we promiseyou already! Holy family without superstition, lover of goodmores without prejudice, wise without hypocrisy, passionate without immorality, burning for glory without rivalry, when all are but one, how you flatter my imagination, and how I desire your existence! After that of a God whom one cannot doubt without terror, yours would be the precious beacon that leads us to a port safe from storms, where one would find the calm of the virtues (2).

NOTES

103TN: He wants actions, and not words. A modification of Racine, Iphigénie, “Il faut des actions, et non pas de paroles.”

FOR THE FIRST CHAPTER

(1) I do not at all like the formula of the invitations on pain of arrest and penalty that we receive on behalf of the constituted authorities. I would like for them to say: “Citizen, the law that you have made orders me, in my position as….to warn you that you are on such and such a day, as a function of such and such an employment under penalty of arrest and penalty….” I know that it says there that it is by virtue of the law that the magistrate orders, but I would prefer that the magistrate remind me that he is the one that the law orders to call me to such and such a function. Can one be too attentive to the forms, when one knows that it is these which, over the long term, change thebackground? When one knows by experience that all democraticgovernments have become lost little by little in despotic governments?

(2) Formerly the men of letters and the artists, Boileau, La Fontaine, Lully, Quinault, Racine, Molière, Rameau…... would go to the cabaret. There, they would forget the petty hatreds that theadmirers of talents cast into the hearts of the artists by always elevating one at the expense of the other. There, a phrase, a quotation would become the seed of one of their immortal works. The Louvre, where some artists, some savants, are lodged, is not what is most appropriate for them; the dearest desire of the studious man would be to enjoy the laughing aspect of the countryside, and the pure air that one breathes there. The national pomp, the philanthropic spirit of the government, is lacking a construction of simple and philosophical retreats to surround the Luxembourg palace, or in the Champs-Elysées. Each habitation would be furnished, would have its little garden kept at the expense of the nation: on each one an illustrious name, written in large letters, would be an object of contemplation for foreigners. Sometimes, under a common arbor, they would meet in order to philosophize, to

dine together, or, to the sound of a sweet music, they wouldpass the summer evenings. Finally, I have yet another wish. I would like the State to be, so to speak, the tutor of the littérateurs and the artists; to have an agent be named and paid by the government in order to watch over their fortune,their affairs; to have him handle their revenues, and do theaccounting; to have him pay their contributions, their rents, to have him look after all their contentious affairs,and to have him thus exempt them from any other occupation beyond those relative to their talents and a few domestic details. It is frightful, it is scandalous, even, that the respectable product of their vigils should almost always taken by cunning scoundrels who abuse their confidence, and who profit by their lack of aptitude for affairs in order todeceive them.

Chapter 2. One can honor talents, without fomenting amour-propre

The greatest danger to which multiple talents expose societyis that of rendering those who possess them egotistic and vain. This is our fault, that of ignorance of the times; we have given too much value to superficial or overly convoluted talents; through amour-propre we have pretended, and still pretend, to understand things that are incomprehensible even for their authors. Let us analyze them, let us look at them more closely, let us be true, let us be just, it is time to stop being the dupes of artificialand artificious talents. The true talents are modest; factitious talents make a man egotistic, insolent and a liar. To make them come down from their lying stilts, let us treat them as Don Quixotes; the weapon of ridicule is the only one that can vanquish them. We have said in the preceding chapter – formerly people of letters were carried along and remained floating among monarchic prejudices and love of the sciences. They said that they were philosophers and had lands and titles; even the commoners called themselves monsieur de. . . they wanted to be equal to the great, the superiors of the petty, and thought petty anyone who was not noble or lettered. Such were the sages of late, whom Rousseau, holding himself apart, reproaches for being the destroyers of equality. But the prejudices of birth and nobility have been knocked down, our age should be exempt from such marked inconsequences, and will no longer present the same men. One hundred partial revolutions follow a greatrevolution, which knocks everything over in order to put everything back in its place. The philosopher, proud of his rank, will no longer seek elsewhere goods that degrade him.

We know that today mediocre talents have become so common that they encumber, to some degree, true merit. That which a man of genius imagines is immediately imitated, devoured by a hundred secondary talents who, with these larcenies, obtain the assent of men of their ilk, who are ingreat number: for it takes rare men to judge rare talents, and both the former and the latter are the elite of the nations. Some kings have elevated talents to the clouds to transport themselves there with them; a pope once offeredhis niece to Raphael: let us thank them; but great men know,finally, what they are by themselves, and that they shrink when they shine with a foreign light. Let us say, then, according to the sense of the title of this chapter, that the day should arrive when the progress of amour-propre willno longer follow those of talents. Up until the present theyhave been confused, misconstrued in comparison to what they should be. Such is the march of the human spirit – it admires, it confounds; then it distinguishes and appreciates.

Eminent talents have not yet been welcomed, as they deserved; factitious talents have imposed on many, and have not been booed as they should have been. Let us honor the scholars in the exact sciences; let us distinguish systematic truths, which are only landmarks, with moral and mathematical truths; let us honor their authors, but under conditions, and expecting better things; it is permitted to doubt when the object that we are observing is at several million leagues from us; and when, in order to reduce the distances, we multiply the effects of the lenses which then transform atoms into masses. Let us say that music and poetry should be retained, leave impressions in us that we love to find once more, in order for these two arts to be what they ought to be; without these qualities, one might say, with Horace: Nugaeque canorae; these are harmonious bagatelles. But the beautiful productions of these two enchanting arts affect us in such a way, their charm is so powerful, that after we have delighted in them, a tragedy byRacine, a poem by Delille, an ode by Lebrun, a scene by Sacchini,

deposited in our libraries, perfume, so to speak, the atmosphere that surrounds them: who would dare to doubt their merit? Let us revere the great talents, and let us whistle down the petty when they are immodest and immoral. Let us accord deference and respect to the former without fearing to foment in them a dangerous amour-propre. This seems like a paradox, and is not, for true talents only go beyond the bounds of a prudent moderation when satire and anoutrageous and dishonest criticism force them. They know, and someone has said, that modesty is the only brilliance that one can add to glory. With respect to superficial talents, humor is their natural inheritance, since constantly are reproached for plagiarizing their teachers. Next comes the overflowing of their offended amour-propre, which thinks it can be revenged by returning scorn for scorn. ---But, finally, who will decide on true merit? ---Who? You, if you honestly descend into your heart; and the natural sovereign of all things, public opinion. ---Sometimes it lies. --- Yes, in the subjects that belong exclusively to it. The people put, on the pinnacle, an empirical, a farceur; but once the subject is important, once educated folk become involved, the matter is discussed and examined, and public opinion, formerly erroneous, is reformed with the voice of reason. Prejudices, popular errors are only perpetuated when they are nourished, and when they do not meet opposition.

Let us examine means for curing maladies related to talents.

If the eighteenth century is the one in which enlightenment was notably propagated; if we add to the already recognized physical and moral truths the general love of truth; if this love becomes the prejudice of honor, and if it is no longer permitted to violate it without infamy, in the important things; if the man who doubts, or who frankly states that he does not know, is more estimable in our eyes than the charlatan who affirms everything

without valid proofs; it is in this century that truth should combat and vanquish errors, the daughters of amour-propre. Ah! who will vanquish, who will defeat the enemy of humankind, this amour-propre which fastens the blindfold over our eyes; who will bow the knee before august truth, ifit is not talent, if it is not he who receives from nature the gift of feeling, understanding, and judging, while the rest of the nations continue to debate each other in their numbness104? Is it in order to deceive, ourselves and others,that we received from her these precious gifts? In conceiving well, as we have shown that true talent is from from poorly-based amour-propre, and that it only belongs to the null man, it should be received, as a fundamental truth,that amour-propre without principles and ignorance are synonymous; that we may regard as a very ordinary man the one who is infatuated with his own science; and that unless it is a question of a purely material and incontestable fact, we may demand of the man who is always affirmative: myfriend, do you know a single thing well, when you pretend toknow everything?

Nevertheless, the talents which, excepting those which are extraordinary, singularly foment amour-propre, preserve those who cultivate them from all the most vile defects. Theman of letters who makes a satire against his confrere; the artist who finds all the genres of production of his art defective, except his own, do not even have the idea of a dishonorable baseness; they run after glory, like two-thirdsof men run after money. A people of artists would be a people of great children that one would lead with a toy: show them Venus who is presenting them with a crown suspendedat her belt – they would forget everything in order to throwthemselves toward her.

104 (G): From this I hear some gangrened conscience saying to me: fastidious moralist, always the truth, the truth! Will you never stop repeating yourself? Non, perverse man! I will never quit you, I want to comb through the last folds of your hardened heart; I want, in my hand, for the torch of truth to become that of the Eumenides; that this devouring fire strike your astonished eyelids; that it follow you, pursue you to the very depth of the precipice where you seekin vain to escape me.

To make his peoples docile, Lycurgus allowed them theftand voluptuousness; among free folk, Venus alone was invoked. In giving talents free rein for their amour-propre,they would be as intrepid in pretentions of the spirit as the Spartans were in war. But our mores are fixed; among us the arts warm up and do not burn; the vile greed for gain belongs to the conquering north, as the voluptuous lyre was the appanage of the Greeks. With us, Rousseau dreaded in vain the baleful effects of talents, our natural moderation mitigates their fire; they can only unbarbarize us. It is the peoples of the south that need correctives in this matter.

To attenuate the amour-propre that talents give, I see nothing better, I repeat, than granting deference and respect to true merit, and no consideration to superficial talent; but it is necessary at the same time to punish the excesses of the true talent, if he forgets himself and respects neither God nor men. The institute already experiences the most lively regrets at not possessing men who would have honored it if they had been able to respect religion, all religions, since the law protects them all; and if, through satirical writings, they had not ripped the entrails, poisoned the happiness of their confreres and of the nephews who survive them. An example which ought to be followed by all academies, and which would make the sciencesand the arts shine with greater glory105. But you, victims of the errors of genius, your talents are not less eminent; a law of decency reaches you; you are struck by a sort of ostracism through having, with too much charm and brilliance, made celebrated some dangerous errors. Victims such as yourself alone can hold back the baleful impulse of the genius ready to go astray. — It is wrong, you will say,to halt the development of genius. — No, it is right to 105 (G): One might well declaim against the institute; it would be honorable to be incorporated there after such examples. He will say, with Fontenelle: Sommes-nous trente-neuf, on est à nos genoux Mais sommes-nous quarante, on se moque de nous. [If we are thirty-nine, they are at our knees, but if we are forty, they mock us.]

prevent it from corrupting mores. They say that an ounce ofnatural talent is better than a pound of talent acquired through force of study: likewise a useful semi-talent is better than a great talent which is harmful to society. It is time to see an end to the scandal which dishonors lettersand the arts. The virulent polemical writings, pamphlets, satires, engender mortal hatred between folk mad at least toesteem each other, if all cannot love each other in good faith. All these pettinesses, unfortunately very common, toomuch diminish the honorable sentiments which the public owesand then refuses to the talents unchained against each other: a corrective is needed for these puerilities. Let it be said, let it be received, that every man with talent, whois not respected among his confreres, be regarded as a talent of a lower order. It must be the case that, even in acritique, the response, and the reply to this same critique,we observe the dignity of the talent: there are authors whomwe could cite as examples of this estimable moderation106. Let us leave to the ignorant periodical writers who nourish themselves from feuilletons, the allure of the worms, and the pettiness of their estate of journalist107. Nothing as dangerous for the man of letters, or he who would become one, than the obligation to produce a printed feuilleton, paid for in advance by the public. Woe to him who cannot, according to the precept of Boileau vingt fois sur le métier, remettre son ouvrage108.

Sooner or later he must fall, and efface through his foolishness some of the impulses of spirit that the hope of the subscribers had given him in his first feuilletons, after a triumphant prospectus.

106 (G): See especially the letter on spectacles by J.J. Rousseau, and d’Alembert’s response to this letter. 107 (G): I must be able to live, said one of these scandalous men to the magistrate whoreprimanded him. I do not see the need for this, he responded. A well-known jibe, but which I love to repeat. 108 (TN): Put his work twenty times upon the anvil [i.e., revise before publication]

Chapter 3.One cannot have everything.

Nature is so vast in prodigies, it has so varied the properties of the various elementary and primordial substances; it has in such a way multiplied their infinite combinations, that there is everywhere, and necessarily, privation of faculties in one individual, at the same time that he possesses faculties that are eminent in another area. It is necessary, to be an author, to be a rare man, tobe a great man in general some of the following faculties: to possess them all equally is impossible; one needs, I say,to have memory, spirit, genius, and judgment.

But a vast memory for which nothing escapes, which retains names, dates, sounds, the forms and material place of everything, must, through this very faculty, be deprived of the gives of creative genius. When, in the memory, everything makes more or less an equal impression, nothing forms the principal nucleus which is fructified each day, each moment, in taking on that which is analogous to it in order to be incorporated into it. When all is equally good, nothing is fitting for dominating the rest. Perfect equilibrium in nature would be inertia: nature needs a moving equilibrium.

Spirit reapproximates too many things that are distant from each other, and it only works thus in chasing far from it the judgment that is always ready to repress its impulses: this is the image of the butterfly which, light asair, cannot settle anywhere, and flits at the will of the zephyrs.

Genius, child of memory and spirit, is able to make a unity from several unities: just as humid earth, pressed into a prepared mold, issues from it to show us Apollo or Venus.

But judgment, severe scrutinizer of all our sensitive

faculties, analyzes, reasons, rectifies, and displaces, in order place better. Without it memory has no useful results;spirit loses itself in its wanderings; genius surpasses human limits. Without judgment, all is chaos; but all would be copying without genius; all would be dough without spirit; nothing would exist in many without memory.

O you, who eminently possess a part of the whole, be proud, but see what you are lacking! I am he who is, said God; you, you are he who is not and cannot be, because he is: I mean to say, he who is only one thing through deprivation of manyother things. To give you one, is to deprive you of the other: to possess all, only belongs to he who is, because heis.

Man only possesses a part of the faculties attributed to our world, who is himself but a member not separated fromthe universe, forming an indivisible whole, governed by the spirit of God. Understanding the connections that exist between the parts of the universe – this is the great work; this is what we hope to know in the life to come: this is the hope of the dying. The summary of this short chapter, which one can meditate over for a long time, is its title itself: One cannot have everything.

Chapter 4.On the connections between our sensations.

Since man made in such a way is necessarily that which he is, there are connections, more or less direct, between his sensations that force him to be such. Without these connections, within him each sense would be vagabond; there would be no unit of will in his judgments.

Whatever he may be, the man of nature is always one; animbecile, a sot, a furious man, whatever you wish, but he issomething true.

Education succeeds when our senses are friends of the object which we present to them; it only makes abortions of

us, if we only present ourselves with objects that are scarcely analogous or enemies of our senses, of our sensations or of our perceptions, and if circumstances do not favor us in putting us in our place. How many bad priests would have been good warriors! How many peasants with good sense would have fruitfully cultivated philosophy!Nevertheless, it must be admitted, there are certain men endowed with such a aplomb in judgment, that, without being equally good for everything, they are fitted for everything.There are null beings who seem not to be connected to anything; as there are many beings mixed in all the operations of the spirit, who touch on each thing without being able to go deeply into anything.

It is not, as we might presume, the physical history ofour sensations of which I wish to speak, after the most celebrated metaphysician of our century109; these are some traits of the moral history of our sensations which we will address.

In dividing our sensations; in seeing them arise one after another in his animated statue, Condillac (who, I avow, I have not understood exactly in all the places in his Treatise)110 presents us the anatomy of our sensations and of the ideas that they impress in our brain to the degree that they arise there. According to our method, we clothe this physical framework with facts that give us moral sensations. Sentiment is to metaphysics that which flesh andthe colors of the painter are for the écorché111. Nothing is good if the first stroke is not exact; but the charm, the truth of the expression of a picture, are in the well-captured attitudes, in the correct drawing of the well-colored figures, and of the well-laid out draperies.

109 (G): Condillac. 110 (G): As long as there is a line in Locke, Condillac, Rousseau, which is not understood exactly, we have the right to complain; the apocalyptic style is entirely inappropriate for the physical or moral sciences. 111 (G): Term of art.

The virtues have sensible connections between them: onecannot be the possessor of one virtue, without possessing other virtuous qualities. The vices also have their analogous vices; these are, if you like, two families, one celestial, one infernal, which, each separately, have their group of kin, connections, indestructible ramifications, finally, a certain family air that we cannot mistake. The habit we have of this kind of filiation between good and badqualities allows us to decide in the first moment for or against those whom we see for the first time; the sample sometimes makes us judge the piece too precipitately. It is a like a spark which, in spite of us, instantly departs fromour intellect, and which casts light, although abstract, on all the still unknown faces of the individual whom we observe: we see whether he shows himself such as he is, or if he does something else.

No matter how little we seek to please, to captivate a new arrival, it is a quite common defect, a too common defect to conceal ourselves at the first meeting. What do these first false and constrained movements mean? Do they mean to say that we are double? Do we take for dupes those whom we do not know and for whom we are unknown? Should we not always return to our natural allure? Show that which we really are, in blushing to have affected qualities which arenot ours? It would be a hundred times better to do the opposite, to affect nothing; or, like the author who wishes the interest in his drama to increase, to develop little by little, and according to the circumstances, the faculties ofour spirit or of our body with which we can adorn ourselves.Let us reflect that the new arrival often has the same desires, the haste as we do to show that which he is or which he is not; then it is an assault of pretentions and grimaces which is really comic for the observer with sang-froid. It is much better, and some people observe this greattactic of the world, it is better, I saw, to at first let the ball be taken by the one who has so much desire to take it in order to give oneself the time to judge his blows,

after which one answers him as appropriate; one gives him the money of his piece, or one makes a master-stroke if coupif the adversary is worth the effort. 112

What results from our liaisons made in haste? What is their ordinary course? We hurry, we exchange mutual caresses; at first, this is a charming man, the most amiablein the world, and he has every good quality. Nevertheless, they notably diminish, and at the end of six months, this same man becomes, for us, a scoundrel, someone to hang… thenremember the instant of your first meeting with this man, ifyou want to fruitfully repent of being too hasty. God forbidthat I should like to see mistrust on the faces that I approach; this is still a moral tactic that reconciles honesty with safety and justice. One will find this digression in a chapter in the third volume.

It is boredom with ourselves, the desire to escape, which presses us thus, and makes us commit the sin of committing in the present follies which we will pay dearly for in the future. It is the abandonment of true pleasures, the habit of factitious pleases, which casts us into this slough which makes us unceasingly sacrifice the present to the future. Let us live a little more according to nature; we will not need, in order to kill time, to play the comedy in the country during the summer, and to see it played in the winter at the theater, for any resource113.

In this paragraph, we have not spoken of the factitiousefforts made by solicitors at the public hearing of people in positions in order to interest them in their favor. It isa spectacle, an entire course in philosophy, observing in

112 (G): After the champagne, the abundance of ideas and pretentions are sometimes so great among people of spirit, that they listen to each other, not to listen, but to grasp the moment to take over the conversation. If he coughs, he is lost, said to his neighbor a guest who could not find a gap in the long narrations of another. 113 (G): “Thank God”, said a dowager, “they are suing me; I will have some way to pass my time agreeably this winter.” This woman was better than the woman whohad filed the suit in order to amuse herself.

how many ways the solicitors think that they can arrive at the same goal; observing the play of their muscles, the action of their soul which wants, in an instant, to reveal ahundred things at the same time. This one takes on a calm air to prove the justice of his demand; the other affects a noble countenance in order to make a contrast with his misery, and in to prove its injustice. This other, through his laughing air, which scowls at that of others, warns the assembly that he comes solely to thank, according to custom,after having obtained that which he desired. This pretty woman lowers her eyes, agitates her breast, and with a furtive eye, regards the effect that she makes on the man inposition; the assembly also observes this colloquy, and thinks it know in advance that which the minister will do for this fair suppliant. A thousand fictive scenes, of everykind, pass before the eyes of the spectators; but this subject, like so many others, has so many facets to be considered, that one cannot run through them all. I do not like an author who shows the pretention of knowing everything; the reader like to be left a corner of the picture to finish himself. How many times authors exhaust themselves in trying to exhaust their subjects, which are inexhaustible! Let us return to our subject.114

All the virtues are manifested through other and relative virtues. Every man whose sentiment is decidedly erroneous on certain subjects, must be deceived on many others related to them. Talents, which the Italians call virtues, give to those who possess them the lights of these same talents. The man who loves music knows how to appreciate the accents of the voices, those of instruments, and of the word. The connoisseur in architecture, painting and sculpture, in sculpture, possesses the justice of the eye. Likewise, the beings stained by immoralities bear the visible stigmata of their vices. We will see them there above in a moment. We certainly have things to hide, we are

114 (G): To my mind, the most perfect book, with regard to form, would be that in which one would never read let us return to our matter.

guessed through that same thing which we are hiding, and by the same thing that we would like to hide. Do we not note that those who laugh with their mouth closed ordinarily are those with bad teeth? Let us open the mouth then, so that they should not think our teeth worse than they are.

One hides, in fact, certain licit passions, certain penchants, because they can serve as a indices to the excessof these mispassions, these same penchants , to which one can deliver oneself without being witness: this is why youngspouses can deliver themselves while dissembling before their friends and their closest relatives, who demand nothing so much as their more post perfect union; they fear to reveal too much about the secrets and immoderate transports of souls burning with love one for another through decent caresses.

The enumeration of the connections between the virtues,and those which the vices have with each other, would go on forever115: let us simply note that agreement between our senses or our sensations establishes in us the love of orderand of the moral virtues, just as disorder between our senses produces disorder and the moral vices. Let us attack, let us always rectify the moral through the physicalin order to be able to arrive at salutary results. The senses are developed, are rectified through instruction. In his first perceptions, the young man thinks that he knows everything; but as he multiplies his knowledge, he compares,he appreciates, he judges, and returns from his first errors. It is when he knows something that he sees that he knows nothing in comparison with that which remains for him to know. The more we elevate ourselves, the greater the extent of the knowledge to be acquired increases in our eyes; where there is but one thing, or few things, the choice is soon made; but where the subjects, the ideas are multiple, one has difficulty in choosing. Having returned 115 (G): We have systematized the means of knowing man through his allure and the traits of his countenance. I fear that Lavater may be able to say whether it is habitual colic or chagrin that has furrowed the features or yellowed the complexion of certain figures.

from his error, the child becomes man; the amour-propre humbles itself; the proud man becomes modest; the envious man doubles back on himself, instead of putting himself above others; the liar, seeing himself rejected, hated everywhere, bows before the truth; the immodest man, dreadedby heads of families and by all honest women, only being able to find companions among the prostitutes, abjures the deviation of his senses, and finally finds once more the calm of happiness at the feet of a virtuous woman. The man of the forests, if he is such, can be good, limited to instinct alone; but the ignorant man in society, always impelled by a foolish pride, wishing to do without discernment that which he sees done by others, is the first of monsters. Happy he who, leaving the labyrinth of vices through education, abjures them in order to embrace the virtues! Happier he who, occupying his youth with useful sciences, is preserved from corrupting vices through the baleful example of their victims; and who thus prepares for himself a sweet life in the breast of the consoling verities! Our youth at present, applied more than ever to the exact sciences, will show, in another fifty years, men loving truth and detesting lying vices, the fruits of error:it is upon them that the more general purification of the corrupted mores of previous centuries must be founded. Yes, the beginning of all education is in the study of mathematics inculcated since childhood. In changing his studies, the man of the law will only become more precise through this, the artist more correct, the businessman more exact, the science of morality deeper and surer…But poetry, music, eloquence? What matters it that the sciences where imagination presides are less generally exercised; the truthis the basis upon which rests the morality of the world; everything must cede to this consideration. The true poet, the born musician, the orator eloquent through the gift of nature, will by themselves pass over the borders of cold reason; their sublime talent excuses their deviations; the crowd of the plebeians of the arts will change destination,

it will gain thereby, we all will gain thereby, and the artswill have lost nothing. Yes, the physico-mathematic sciences, taught from childhood on, having as goal the perfecting of mores116 , will bring closer, will lead us perhaps to this so-desired end. The love of truth is but one, all the virtues are in this a single virtue, rooted since childhood in the heart of man, door of infinite ramifications. O Truth, mother of all good things! Sweetness, patience, modesty are your cherished daughters; order, temperance, and joy accompany you; humanity, tolerance, and moderation follow your footsteps; pity, beneficence, and charity create your delights….! Such is thevirtuous progeniture, such is the family of the amiable Truth. But just as certain poisons are engendered in savage forests, which cause the traveler to expire when he comes too close117; defects and vices are interwoven and have but asingle ramification. Lying is their father; error is their mother. Inebriation and libertinage lead immediately to every crapulous defect. One blushes with shame, but one seesmen educated since their childhood, who offer us the afflicting contrast of debauchery and some flashes of geniuspreserved in spite of their excesses, and which pierce through their rags. One sees, I say, some men, good, timid, honest, embrutened to such a degree, that one is obliged to flee from them while still loving them118 . But, like the reptile who lives in the mud, too happy if the man without education remains collapsed there; if he raises himself oncemore, if he leaves his putrid lethargy, it is in order to infect society with all the immoral vices. Son of lying and 116 (G): What book would be like that which would connect, through analogies, moral truths with physical truths! 117 (G): The criminals of this land, according to the story, are condemned to gocollect these subtle poisons with which the savages envenom their arrows; and if, laden with all their burden, they return, they obtain their pardon. 118 (G): Here, you will argue against my principles, I can see; in vino veritas, you will say. Why reduce the brake on the first of pleasures, since their excess leads to so many ills? -- I am far, it seems to me, from preaching vice, but isthere a greater vice than lying? Yes, I still prefer a frank drunk, a truthful debauchee, to the best-fashioned liar.

error, disorder has overthrown his reasons; he offers us theshameful spectacle of the degenerate man. In him his brutalization is only awakened when fomented by rage, imprecation, and blasphemy; having broken all the honest bonds which united him to society, fraud, theft, and murder are the resources which remain for him in order to live; abhorred and hunted down everywhere, pursued like an enragedbeast, he falls, finally, under the sword of the laws; and from the scaffold where he expires, he says to the young people who surround him: Thus ends the man who defied mores and laws. The first lie did it all; corrected at its source, I would have been an example of the good; I am an example of the perverse.

There are connections between the virtues and the true talents, as there are between the vices and the factitious talents; but we have discussed this subject in our Essays onMusic. See the chapter titled: Are great talents always accompanied by good mores? volume 2, chapter 6. In order to further develop this facet of our proposition, we will speak about reputations acquired through good or ill; how important it is to have regard for the times where they flourished, the circumstances which gave them brilliance, and which often, without being deserved, rendered them gigantic.

But let summarize this chapter before moving on to another, and let us say, let us repeat unendingly, that whentruth is the principle, the prejudice of honor, a general, formidable, indubitable opinion will be formed regarding morality. The measure of the talents of every kind will be determined in a manner so invariable that one will only argue regarding the greater or lesser development of the talents being born. With regard to those which will have gotten underway, their assessment will soon be done; and thealleged talent, usurped, made from the debris of classic talents, will inspire no more interest than an old almanac. I say further, the connections between our faculties are linked so much that one will surmise the general morality ofa man from his appreciated and recognized talents: it is

according to his true conduct in everything that one will judge the back of his storehouse.

Do you believe, then, that these men who have never been able to take the honorable and appropriate side, are inaccord with their senses, with themselves? Undeceive yourselves; the gilded species of imbeciles who are impudentin successes, aghast in misfortune, amorous for more than three days with a coquette, who only love an honest woman for eight days, who mistreat her or leave her, because she is submissive and good, who spend everything for the woman who knows how to master them, who are foppish and insolent if they are loved, ready to do everything in order to have gold, who build themselves temples where the incense that isburned there takes on a character of sacrilege or impiety…. undeceive yourself, I say; all these semi-men are without true character, and are only inept imitators. There are far from enough connections between their sensations; they wander over the earth with an instinct less to be esteemed than that of the mole.

Chapter 5. On reputations.

One of these days, all previous reputations, although deserved in their respective times, will be weighed once more, and reduced to their proper value.

In the midst of the shadows, objects do not appear with their true forms, imagination transforms them while lending them its colors; and they are almost always monstersthat it creates within the obscurity. The star of light finally appears; the phantoms of the imagination dissipate, and truth shines with a clear burst of light. Likewise, the production of genius and of the spirit had only to be judgedand conceive according to the light of the time when they were conceived. How many time did not ignorant men prostratethemselves for a lie! How many times did they misunderstand,anathematize the sublime man whose genius was in advance of his century! But finally, even error has its end, when the lovers of the eternal truths prefer the naked truths to its phantom, more artistically draped. This love, this warmth of the true, along can heat the ices of cold analysis, and give us the virtuous courage pitiless condemning the attractive heat of delirium and unreason, when they are ableto render us partisans of the lie.

Soon, we will be able to dispense with reading several thousands of volumes the substance of which has been extracted and reported in our good books; we will there gainthe time, always so precious, that we lose in long investigations.

A librarian is only a sort of director of the ancient chaos, where each system, each proposition of a single thingis proved, disapproved, praised, and condemned, all at the same time. A meeting of scholars, a scientific and literary assembly becomes more and more indispensable in order to class books under the title of Aperçu or Complete; then bibliomania will no longer be a harmful science which

confuses everything, who often only esteems books according to their antiquity and their rarity, their typographic perfection and their engravings. The meeting of scholars of which I speak should also indicate to us the books which we are lacking, and which ancient works should be compiled oncemore in order to deeply discuss a particular matter

There will be, I suppose, two divisions in a library: the most numerous will include the aperçus, the echelons thathave led us to results. There will be further, if we wish, four subdivisions of books in duplicate, bringing together the antique books, the rare books, those for which the typographical part is particularly meticulous….and one for excellent engravings: here we have the first division. The second will be made up of the complete books, of the truly classic books, which one should entrust, recommend to men inorder for them to arrive at a precise and certain education,without overly drowning them in an ocean of doubts, contradictions, errors, and volumes. ---This is, you will say, what Condillac has done. ---Yes, for history, precision of language, ideas, and several branches of the abstract sciences. But ten men such as him, if nature was not miserlywith such, would scarcely suffice to carry out such an enormous task. ---This is also that the Authors of the Encyclopedia have done. ---Yes, in some respects; but although its title bears it, the Encyclopedia is a dictionary where each thing is abridged, and it is complete treatises which we desire, and of which it is a question here; of classic works in which we find precision joined with elegance, and all the recognized truths relating to each science, after the healthy judgement of the skilled analyses of this ultra-revolutionary century119.119 (G): A book, which perhaps does not exist, would be, I think, necessary to facilitate the work of which I speak. This book would be a general table of all the known subjects; indicating the names of the authors who have spoken in depthof a subject, and in what work. After having consulted all those who have gone into the same subject, the result of all their ideas would be easier to form. Can you believe that after having consulted with various scholars from the Institute, I was unable to obtain a satisfactory epigraph on Truth, in order to put this at the head of this work; and that I was obliged to take from the work itself? If the book that I am asking for had existed; if I had found there the

In traversing the tenebrous labyrinth of libraries, we find among the books of the ancients and the moderns the highest sciences treated in the most obscure manner, becausethese authors thought they knew deeply things for which theyonly knew the surface, and often took the relationships of athing for the thing itself. Moreover, let us not imitate these writers who, in order not to compromise the faith of the peoples, presented to only reveal a part of their learned knowledge, while, in truth, they knew no more than they said about it to us, and they only offered some proposition that they were far from understanding. Thence were born wars of religion, civil wars where human blood ranin streams, or interminable partisan disputes. This author is a prophet, a god, said some; no, said the others, he is acharlatan, an imposter. Let us avoid renewing a struggle which would be scandalous today, after the fall of errors which only still survive in the dusty archives of centuries gone by. ---A proposition venture, you will say, can containthe germ of a great truth; and it is from the collision of opinions that it often jets forth. – I agree; but let us nolonger mysteriously say the half of a thing, in pretending to not want to reveal it entirely. Let us say, this thing could certainly be thus, but I do not yet understand it sufficiently to discuss it with clarity.

We note with what puerile denial they used to enjoy having princes and princesses talk in books, in order to make themselves imposing in company. enjoyed make princes and princesses talk and act in book in order to make them imposing in company. Other authors affected the opposite intalking about great men and great events, with a familiar tone, in order to show that they were on a level with their sublime subject. This one talked about Alexander as if he were a brat; of nature, like a good woman; and all these names of the classical authors who had spoken ad hoc of Truth, I would have easily found an epigraph; and how many ideas would they not have aroused in me on the important subject that occupies me!

genteel refinements always concealed something that was never admitted, and which one always saw: the amour-propre of the author. Let us follow nature, let us invoke truth, italone is great without ostentation; it alone makes immortal those that it deigns to inspire.

With respect to the ephemeral productions of the arts, they are less dangerous to mores than the erroneous truths disseminated in books. This composition is empty of invention and of unity; nothing has to do with the goal of the author, or, to put it another way, he himself does not know the point of his work. Recollections of particular ideas that he dredged up from works that made an impression,and which he reproduces to less advantage, are the sole merit of his work. However, present this assemblage to men ignorant of the original source of these precious materials;to men who feel nothing beyond the sensations one produces for them; for whom one idea does not awake any other ideas, because they have none in reserve; they will tell you vaguely that there is beauty in these valetudinarian productions; and the plagiarizing author will enjoy a certain reputation for a few days. More than one fine work appears; then, as when the sun at its rising disperses the mist, the idiot Maecenases appear, frolicsome youth, avid for innovations, the pretty actress whose graces have maskedthe defaults of theatrical productions, all these prestiges disappear, and the work, like a false idol, is relegated to a corner from which it is only occasionally retrieved in order to serve as an example of poor taste, and to warn us to defend ourselves against it.

One could compare dispositions to the talents, to the various complexions of the individuals. This poor health isdragging itself along at all times. This other which is intermittent, sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes high,sometimes low, seems to follow the impulses of the barometer, which itself is directed by the weather. This robust health bursts, so to speak, through its plethora, which leads to the explosion of the overaccumulation of

blood and humors. This other, finally, with a constitution between the too much and the too little, attains that just medium which produces equilibrium in the physical, and ease and grace in the moral. Likewise, one talent is piteous and poor; the other has only flashes of genius that are gainsaidby the absurdities that follow. This gigantic talent astonishes you at first by his brilliance, and soon stifles your judgment in his overabundance; this other, finally, just like good health, having attained the just medium, not too high, nor too low, I mean to say, not high enough to produce dread of a fall, nor low enough to an inspire a disgust with triviality, leaves you an a sweet quietude, andalways satisfies you120.

True reputations are thus those which, already brilliant from their dawn, support themselves from age to age without being eclipsed by any other reputation. In the sciences, truth is the basis on which they rest. In the arts, whatever one may do, one cannot graps in the same manner all the parts that constitute their originality; one can do better, but through other procedures. The works that excel both through their basis and their form, belong to allages. In the arts, whatever one does, one cannot grasp in the same manner all the parts which constitute their originality: one can do better, but through other procedures. The works which excel both through their basis and their form are for all times. If the form varies according to men’s caprice, they are maintained by their basis; those which only have form are more likely to lose their luster; nevertheless, the Epopea, such as Homer has transmitted it to us, is at once a school through is ideal beauties, its eloquent simplicity, and its elegance.

The monuments of the arts and sciences, in general, such as the Greeks conceived them, have not been surpassed

120 (G): Here we could make many distinctions between character and spirit; but I confuse them, because I think that they have the same sources.

by the moderns. What remains from this people, favored by their climate, their religion, and their mores, must render us inconsolable at only having retained from it a few classic books and some statues. The ancient and modern romans have left us some buildings, painting, and some booksthat we can perhaps equal, but which have served us as guides. Modern Rome has given us the leading musician; Pergolesi felt the words that he painted, and the declamation that he painted was true, sentimental, and cantabile. I haveperhaps extended his career, but Pergolesi had preceded me. Montaigne is full as an egg, his language is no longer ours, but his ideas are those of all the past centuries and of those to come …..I will stop here through prudence, and leave this task to be completed by others. My only talent is of natural inspiration, and not all having to do with erudition; here one would need, and for me I would need too much presumption to recapitulate the knowledge of the illustrious men whose works, for the most part, I only know superficially. Let us summarize. So many things contribute to the establishing of reputations, that only time can complete the preparation. Such and such a work, boasted of at first by the coterie of amateurs and by the journals thatit monopolizes, is announced as a masterwork; but soon its reputation declines and it is forgotten; another, weakly announced, increase every day in the opinion of men who are truly educated, who read slowly because they read well, and they are not in a rush to publicize their opinion121. People of the world, on the contrary, although flatterers or strongdetractors of works, read haphazardly, and skim rather than digest volumes. Further, a particular genre of the sciences is in fashion today, and we only favor the books that deal with it. Ten years later, fashions change, and the work thatwe had scarcely read, is devoured.

121 (G): People of letters contribute little to the reputation of a good book aslong as its author is alive. They certainly say, it is a fine work, but they immediately change the subject. Here, in part, is why literary reputations are only consolidated after death.

The style of a good writer should certainly take its character from the material that he is dealing with. Nevertheless, just a short while ago, we loved, in writing of every genre, flowery rhetoric, and philosophical declamations, without which ennui, they said, caused the book to drop from one’s hands. After the revolution, we would like for a mathematical precision to direct though, wewish only the word itself without amplification; the intention of amusing, of seducing one’s reader through whatever means possible, is regard as a resource unworthy ofaustere truth. If Rousseau wrote today, one would perhaps tell him at the Institute, that the force of his reasoning is sufficient, without striking both heart and spirit at once through moral approaches, which grip us and put us instantly in the place of the character in question. Let us be on guard; let us avoid excesses; let us treat each thing in its own manner; let the books that we boast of not be those which we can only finish by imposing the law of reading one chapter each day. Pleasure is the constant goal toward which all men aspire; to present them with the truth in amiable or terrible forms, and never dry and arid one, was at all times the secret of genius.

Our reputations are only real in as much as they are appreciated and approved by posterity; when we are no more. Only our nephews can fully enjoy them. However, there are compensations that re-establish the natural order. What gooddoes it to, for example, to be the descendant of Racine or of Voltaire, if stupidity only makes us fit to sweep the streets? And why would this sweeper be scorned when his son will become, perhaps, the leading geometer of his century?

It is the instinct for educating oneself, it is the secret desire for unveiling everything that is enveloped in mystery, which pushes us toward talents; and, like the oyster, which, they say, through its saline obstructions, engenders the pearl with which we adorn our altars and the breast of our beauties, it is through the malady that we call excitation of the spirit that we imagine the most

astonishing things.

Chapter 6. Development of the preceding proposition.

It is our manner of being constituted that forms our

character and our dispositions for whichever talents, after which education, good, bad or null, decides on the capacity or incapacity of the individual. If the spark does not approach the powder or the tinder, the fire is not propagated at all: there is a flash that shines and disappears. Likewise, sensitivity is in our organs, but needs to be struck in order to produce sensations on us.

Sensitivity is only one; nevertheless, it is extreme, tempered or weak, and our sensations are the same. Extreme sensitivity is disease; tempered, it is health; weak, it is almost abstraction of existence.

Love of existence makes us run after sensations that prove to us that we exist; but we are only struck in proportion to our sensitivity and according to our sensitivity. The individual in which this is extreme delights in tenderness; the one where it is tempered, smilesat the shock that wounds the former; the one where it is weak, and almost null, is indifferent to the same causes that affect the other two. Let us apply this to talents. Extreme sensitivity, directed at sublime objects, produces in us excitement of the spirit, appropriate for epic poetry,which is nourished by fictions, which lives among the gods, which, in its metaphors, personifies all of nature, sees Niobe in a stream, Apollo in the sun…. This is the fever of reason, which we call genius when it is not delirious, whichserves to revive our spirits and our senses, often weighed down under the matter that presses on them.

The same sensitivity, less exasperated, and closer to our perceptions, gives the justness fitting for moral philosophy, as pure as eloquent. It is this sensitivity which creates the bold but natural systems; it is this which

inspires pathetic and sentimental productions; it is still this which gives perfect verses to the poet, and to the musician the melodies which carry away the soul of the listeners.

Mixed sensitivity, in condemning every sort of excitation, is enclosed within the limits of the analysis necessary to the exact sciences, and for all the mechanical arts derived from them, and which require the precision of the compass.

If we relate our proposition to the moral, we will see that it is often through the opposites that shock us, stimulate us, impel us, torment us, that our sensitivity acts and determines the actions that establish our character. Being poor, man hopes and laughs in his poverty; being rich, he speculates, and becomes sad and mistrustful. The vicious and disordered man is enveloped by the chaos in which he struggles with himself in order to establish order in his judgment: which would infallibly cure him, if a foreign force, some good examples, determined him and causedthe balance to lean to the side of good. Love is the need topossess that which one loves; and the remedy for this maladyof plethora attenuates its faculties and prestige. Gaiety isthe remedy for sadness that we wish to escape from; we oftenbecome gay through weariness at being sad, and we become sadthrough abuse of means of enjoyment.

The moral, in turn, influences talents. The habitual calculator experiences the need for order without which his faculties would be null. Without distress, without melancholy, Young would perhaps be insipid instead of being sublime. Without distress, Rousseau would perhaps have been only a cold moralist. The poet, rich possessor of the goods of fortune, would renounce his fictions. It is thus that a greater or less degree of sensitivity determines within us the faculties fitting for various talents; that the part of sensitivity necessary for the arts of imagination is too

strong for the exact sciences; that true philosophy needs the combination of truth and an eloquent sensitivity; that precision is the basis of the mathematical sciences; and that, finally, too little sensitivity makes man null for conceptions of all kinds.

Chapter 8 That one should not allow one’s happiness to be blemished by thebehavior of the wicked, of liars, of scoundrels and of sots

We will try to prove that vicious men too often tarnish the happiness of people of good; and that the latter, approved by their good conscience, should make themselves a reasoned system to keep these sad influences far from them.

Man is always led by interest, whether he is pushed by his real or factitious needs, or by the impulses of his amour-propre; and since the amour-propre increases its resorts in proportion to the lack of means of the individual, it is never more opinionated than when it is based on the chimeras of immoralities. The wicked and the sots are, then, very appropriate for annoying the wise, if the latter, as we have said, do not learn to repel, without irritation or misanthropy, the reactions of ignorance, of stupidity, and malignity.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau formerly provided us with a baleful example that shows to what extent the estimable man can be rendered unhappy by the vices and stupidities of others. Onecommonly believes today that the imagination of this virtuous atrabiliary doubled the reasons for the discontent that constantly distressed him. We believe even more: we think that Rousseau, through his way of being, had given up onthe project of wanting to be happy. However, the man of genius, the man who makes an effect in society, causes a problem there, a real scandal, by appearing unhappy within the very breast of the virtues. The most honest man, the most lost in his unsociable misanthropy, pushes away, through this baleful example, the imitators of his virtues. Everyone envies the genius, the reputation of Rousseau; everyone would be happy to have as much probity as he had, but no one, I think, would desire the existence of this unfortunate philosopher. There is, I think, a regime which is desirable, indispensable, and permitted for every honest

man, which consists, 1. in knowing how to recognize immoral and vain men, which is not difficult; 2. in only expecting,on their part, extravagances and false results, since we know in advance that such a tree will only produce bitter fruits 3. in knowing how to repress our initial feelings ofindignation in seeing vice and stupidity, that our serenity will only be altered up to a certain point. — This is asking, you will say, for the sage to be an egotist insensitive to the woes of humanity.— No, I am asking for the sage never to become an unsociable pedant; that he congratulate himself on his own virtues while opposing them,with delight, to the common vices; for to afflict oneself beyond measure with the wrongs of another, to the point of becoming an unhappy atrabiliary, is to give men little desire to be strict in their mores. If, on the contrary, we show that probity, the virtues, give enjoyment, a serenity of soul that the common man does not have, all, or at least many, will follow our example in order to be as happy as we.Why do we repeat this distressing maxim so often? “We see, everywhere on earth, virtue unhappy, and vice triumphant”. This is not only because the vile flatterer, the base intriguer know how to look for gold, for happiness is not inbaseness; this type of happiness should not be envied by anyone; it is especially because the virtuous man does not sufficiently manifest the sweetness of his existence, does not reflect, does not sufficiently realize that happiness ishis appanage, that he is not for himself alone, and that, without being affected by the conduct of the perverse, he should instead shrug his shoulders while saying: “What a difference, what an immense space there is between that man and myself!” What then! because this jealous artist will speak with little esteem of my talents; because this scholar, bothered by Greek or calculus, will rank them amongthe frivolities; because this scoundrel will make me sign a receipt in general terms, and will appropriate more than I had agreed to grant him…. I will need to stop drinking and eating for a time? No, virtuous men, you abuse yourselves, your sensitivity deceives you, your amour-propre reveals itself with too much glare, repeat once more: “What an

immense distance between this scoundrel and me!” Believe that soon he will deceive others, he will make himself known, you will see him in the mud, and you will be avenged.How then! after having spent more than half my life in practicing the social virtues, I still have not done enough for my happiness? And the scoundrel, vicious men, and liars who surround me will unendingly come to trouble the calm that I have deserved for my honesty, continence, temperance,and probity? No, once more, and without ever capitulating tovice, it is, I think, very wise to laugh at the efforts of scoundrels, rather than to be annoyed beyond measure. Yes, probity, the susceptibility common to educated people, need the considered regime that I propose, without which no true happiness is allowed them. It is for myself that I seek to press this argument; I have felt the need of it a thousand times.

It is a sad reward, that of isolating oneself from men,because one has made oneself superior to them through virtues or talents. In growing old, we should, on the contrary, surround ourselves with beings who can make us happy, help us. But general mores shock us; out of a thousand, there is scarcely one who satisfies us; humor and distress defeat us, and here we are, unhappy, not through ourselves, but through those who frequent us. I constantly meet in this world the virtous, the stoic atrabiliary, having nothing to reproach himself for, but not being able to be happy, because he devours himself in superfluous regrets in looking at the wicked and the stupid. Ah my friend! Do you want to change, shape all men to your way of being and feeling? This is to want the impossible; this is not to be wise. You might as well want to make an elephant from a flea, or a lamb from a lion. Think, then, that it is whey, a liquid without substance and without strength that circulates in the veins of this infant or that man without character; and that your humors, your vital fluids are brandy by comparison. Take an emetic to rid yourself of yourblack humor, and laugh at the stupidities of our dear associates. Observe yourself; learn to know yourself. Is it

not your aged faculties, a new world that abandons you, which cause you more chagrin than the defects of men?

Morality will perhaps someday be as sure, as stable as the exact sciences: then coarse errors in morality and politics will make us laugh as we laugh today about a tongue-twister; but while we wait let us not be afflicted bythe mania of the sots who have good reason to be so, since they cannot be otherwise because of their physical dispositions. If, I say, morality takes a stable seating, iflying, whatever the lie may be, bothers our heart like the approach of a foul putridity, then we will laugh at the ineptitude of those refractory to the accepted truth; and sustained by general opinion, we will send the wicked, the sots, and all the pretentious fools to the school of experience.

Chapter 9That men cannot at all times be governed by the same means

Were it only sots, sages, and madmen who formed the whole of society, the means of making them agree could be regarded as being above human prudence. But, in addition, circumstances change, and in legislation, as in everything, it is the surroundings that make the merit of our proceedings.

After all the moralists, ancient and modern, we have said and often repeated, that amour-propre decides almost all of men’s actions. However, since it is the moving force of good and bad actions, it should be managed by those who govern, and we will easily agree that the dominators of men,degraded by ignorance, had too much beaten down their amour-propre; that after this, the sciences had too much reanimated it; and that only political liberty can maintain it within the proper bounds. It is this that we will try to prove in a more detailed manner in the rest of this chapter.

Mores often pass from one extreme to another, through the means of revolutions. In looking once more at that whichwe were, we will observe that the domination of the great and the humility of the small were the basis of the mores ofthe known world, after the Greek and Roman republics. The cross and the scepter formed but one fasces for taming the crude man who was lacking in education, the noble energy that it causes to arise, and which was needed for him to reconquer his liberty. Not knowing how to read or write, deprived of the help of the printing press, in a time when the scholar and the philosopher were extremely rare, and when they had strong reasons for concealing their knowledge,…...it is clear that the remedy to ignorance did not exist, or was virtually null in proportion to the reigning evil.

Moreover, the priests, in accord with the prince, must have preferred to put man under the yoke, rather than educating him: this will always be the decision that the

dominators of ignorant races will take, unless a single man governs, and unless this man is a Lycurgus, a Solon, a Numa, a Marcus-Aurelius……But if the government falls into ordinary hands; then, the more ignorance dominates on the one hand, the more amour-propre is awakened on the other: We can dominate, let us dominate, has always been the language and the result of the conduct of men joined in society, unless, education having been sufficiently general, they sense the uselessness of a usurped domination, which soon would cause the dupes to revolt at the expense of the usurpers crushed by the number.

In the hypothesis that we have formed, that the ignorant man is easily subjugated, let us observe how much the Christian religion came to the aid of the mores that powerful men had an interest in maintaining. A God, a model of patience and sweetness, mistreated, flagellated, crucified, was unendingly offered to them as example; all their actions, except for humility, were transformed into sins of the first or second order; and as many penitences, whether fasts, or pilgrimages, were commanded to them in expiation of their crimes, most of them contrived. The church held its power from God, and the throne held it from heaven and from the church: kneel, mortals, obey, do not reason, never rebel under penalty of eternal damnation; and if someone slaps you, turn the other cheek. However, if thismorality had been for all, we could not have avoided admiring its sublimity; but it was only for the people, for if you were noble, then the promptest vengeance required that the least affront was washed in blood. Princes even legalized murder, in presiding over combats to the death that were called à outrance. Should not the contradiction between these two moralities, the plebeian and the noble, bestriking even to the most ignorant? And should we be surprised that, in becoming educated, the stronger, the morenumerous class, should have shaken off the yoke oppressing it for two thousand years? Yes, the morality of Jesus Christis sublime in its humility, but this divine legislator knew

that the powerful man would abuse it, and Scripture adds: Deposuit potentes de sede, et exaltavit humiles.

Once printing was invented, ignorance was destroyed. The desire to multiply knowledge, to elevate one’s being, isan instinct as irresistible in man if only he has the means,as it is for the woman to adorn herself in order to be beautiful. Love of self is for man that which coquetry is for woman. We have already said, and we repeat, that partialeducation, as it existed among the ancient nations, must have been concentrated among the scholars of those times, because the man of the people was then too brutish to deserve the initiation: but to the degree that the science were propagated, man required truth to take the place of lies. The phenomena of nature, which had frightened him for a long time, thunder, volcanoes, earthquakes, were nothing more in his eyes than natural effects, once he had learned their causes. In what then, were sciences and the arts dangerous, in multiplying as they have done for several centuries? Here is how: the ignorant man allowed himself to be led, he was a serf, he was subjugated, unhappy, but he suffered with a long patience, and did not overturn the general order with his rebellions. More educated, there was no end to his desires, and he wanted to know the reason for everything; and since a people of philosophers is an impossible reunion; since the semi-talents always form the greatest number, they would have, with their ridiculous pretentions, overturned the earth, if, to level amour-propres, the educated men of our days had not called to their aid democratic liberty with that of all the religions.Then, all men having the same rights, it is the fault of theindividual if he does not arrive at eminent and lucrative positions. Who can he blame in his obscurity? His ignorance,his lack of activity. Law calls him to honors and fortune, but it is matter to know the legal rods that lead him there,without which the easiest, the lowest employments in societyremain barred to him, without him being able to complain about it.

In supposing a third of men sufficiently educated to nolonger be able to support the yoke of prejudices; and the entirety unused to feudal servitude and given to political liberty, there is scarcely any recourse for error, nor for those who would use it to subjugate the multitude. In this state, with the law vigorously maintained, and common among us, the empire of reason exercised, respected by the elect who make up a third of the mass; these two powers must combine for a more general happiness than that of times gone-by; no longer this precarious happiness that the peoplebought through its servile submission, and which we seemed to grant it through pity and at will, but a more constant happiness, founded on its own rights, on the rights of man and of reason. Rights, as we have said, which accord to all the prerogative of being elevated to all employments, to every degree as a result of the faculties of citizens.

To close this chapter, we will recall that chapter entitled, On the results of education and of ignorance, where we distinguished three reigns: that of men as shepherds, of mensubjugated through feudality, and that of men regenerated through education. The men of the first reign, we said, weregoverned by their old men, born patriarchs of the primitive societies: this is the government of nature, while man livedaccording to its laws; the men of the second reign only marched through blows with stirrups; those of the third no longer wish to march but with the torch of reason. It seems,then, that in the matter of government, man will be fixed tothe following: Avoid, 1. Religious fanaticism, through the freedom of the religious cults; 2. The aristocracy and despotism of people in positions, thorugh a legal surveillance of a portion of the people; 3. Popular anarchy,through the strength of a government which everyone must obey. It is from this balance that the regularity of the whole arises. Just as the gears of a watch are pushed by a spring, and retained by an escapement which itself receives the movement of the wheels that it contains; thus the magistrate holds his power from the law, while another legalpower oversees him so that he cannot go beyond the bounds ofhis powers.

If happiness were on the earth, it is thus that we could attain it; not a happiness without clouds, man is not born to savor it: the reign of education itself has stumbling blocks, for it is the reign of gilded lies. It is necessary then still to know how to avoid even the deceptive charms ofeloquence.

Chapter 10On the dangers of eloquence.

To the degree that a people becomes enlightened, it perfects its language: the purification of a language is theproof of the clarity of its ideas. Diction and melody revealto the ear of the educated traveler the degree of civilization of a people, which takes a longer or shorter time to be formed, depending on its means of education. In its gradation, it must have three periods: a beginning, a middle, and an end. A people at its birth must be stupid, coarse, but sincere. After having acquired some social knowledge, it becomes egotistic, cruel, and maladroit. It has some ideas, some desires without the means of carrying them out, and its frankness begins to degenerate into dissimulation. Just as the man of the village, neighbor to the great cities, is cunning and perfidious, the savage who approaches civilization has the same defects. Travelers musthave found the good man in the state of nature; cruel, sanguinary, a liar, when, without discernment or experience,he begins to become civilized; in the third period, he is less egotistic in appearance, because he has noticed that hemust give in order to receive. He thus distributes his caresses, his money, when he thinks he will receive great interest on these; then the smile of falsity appears on his lips, he bows before he who is richer than him, and from whom he expects some benefices, he conceals all his defects under a graceful varnish of politeness and falsity. It is from this period that absolute inequality between men dates.Devoted to nature, they were equal; but a moral equilibrium cannot exist when, in the physical, there is on one side, strength, activity, intelligence, and on othe other, weakness, laziness, and stupidity, without counting the inequality that arises from the politics of some, and the sincerity of others: final, without wanting to calculate thevarious means of perfidy, over which it is good to cast a salutary veil.

If one were to ask at which periods of civilization we find the best men, we will boldly say that it is in the first and third. In the first, it is the man of nature who vegetates with the plant from which he draws his subsistence. He was misunderstood by the antagonists of Rousseau, because they confused him with the man of the second period of civilization. For the rest, unless men avoid each other instead of approaching each other; unless they are dispersed into packs of families, instead of forming groups, the first period is soon confused with the second: the age of innocence is soon corrupted; and, I repeat, what to expect from man when he has only been able to brush the surface of reciprocal agreements? He thinks that he knows everything and knows nothing exactly; he is bloated with ridiculous pretentions. I do not deny that in the first, especially in the second period, he can show himself to be a man superior to all others through the anticipation of enlightenment; but prudence requires that heconceal himself in order to avoid the excesses of his companions, who, not being able to judge such a man, would burn him as a sorcerer if they do not elevate him to the rank of the gods. It is thus at the final end of civilization, after having weighed all the inconveniences that result from ignorance, knowing deeply the tactics of good and evil, that there appear men sufficiently educated in order to do, through amour-propre, if you wish, but rather for their own satisfaction, that which was impossiblefor the men of the first and the second epoch. It is then one finds enough men of probity who are able to convince themajority to their philanthropic views; it is then that one sees the educated man living with little, putting all his glory into purifying mores, or into perfecting some science.Idolatrous about his political liberty, he proudly sacrifices titles, honors, fortune; a diadem is for him no more than a moral propriety at which he smiles with pity being in his office, but which he nevertheless respects, if the general good depends on it. All his happiness is in theuse of his reason, and in the inexhaustible study of nature.

Let us speak now of eloquence: that of the first man isall in action; it is his undisguised egotism which speaks inhim; it is an irresistible will of his instinct, which cannot suffer competition, which wants to possess and enjoy at the same moment in which the need makes itself felt. The eloquence of the man of the second period, just like that ofthe little-educated man in our societies, is also manifestedmuch more in his actions, or in some energetic words, than in a prepared speech. The history of ancient times, that of our revolution, teems with these eloquent and sublime words,which are the more striking in that they are impulses of nature where no scholastic preparation is sensed.

The eloquence of educated men is like the pompous garden where the noblest symmetry is observed often to the prejudice of the truth. Let eloquence reign in the ode, in the tragedy, in academic discourses, made to elevate the soul, to move, to inflame emulation; let it reign also, whenone must attract men to the practice of the virtues; let it be honored in proclaiming the truth in all the dogmas of morality; but let us detest it when, resplendent with lies, it exhibits its pompous detours in diplomatic treaties. Let beautiful symmetric and concordant phrases be banished from legislative councils and from tribunals. Did a respectable father ever use these to recall his children to duty? The legislator, the judge, the magistrate, are the fathers of the people; they ought, in order to deserve its assent, its respect, to have candor and paternal amenity; impassible like the law, they should place the brute and material factsin the balance of Themis. It is then that, without uncertainty, one will see it rapidly tilt to one side; it isthen that the divine essence of the truth remaining suspended, the abject lie will fall. Yes, the pernicious useof eloquence and of certain juggleries of which we will soonspeak, only serves, in tribunals, to favor the maze of chicanery. Why these pompous preambles, these eloquent movements, these gigantic efforts, and at the same time puerile, in order to move the listener before having articulated the facts? How many times, after having read so-

called instructive memos, pro and contra, do we not remain in suspense, with the impossibility of handing down a judgment? In order to arrive there, one must undo everythingthat the eloquent scribe has done. However, the fleeting rapidity of spoken discourse not permitting this deconstruction of the elements of eloquence, one is compelled because one is moved; one thinks that one is fair when one is only weak. The seductive lawyer does not fail toaccumulate banal protestations of the probity of his client,which, in interpretative logic, means that the one against whom he is pleading is near to being a dishonest man. One articulates facts without proofs, which one hastens to let pass after a fact that is evidently proved; the entire enveloped with rhythmic phrases like those of a minuet; ornamented with sumptuous and high-flown epithets, passagesof spirit, with unexpected points…; and it is from this thatit is necessary to draw a conclusion fatal to one party or the other122 ! If the legislator, if the lawyer were deprivedof their employments for having abusively made an eloquent discourse, or having overloaded it with ridiculous, and above all defamatory ornaments, they would be more circumspect and more prudent. The desire to shine by means of their talents would not carry the day over love of justice and truth; pecuniary interest would no longer make them defend bad causes; finally, the defender of the lie, once recognized, would be everywhere rejected, even by cunning clients123. One then would see men whose pure conscience, probity without art, sweet eloquence of soul, would persuade us without efforts.

I know that in order to move the multitude, the vehemence of an eloquent discourse can do much; but tribunals are not spectacles: here, all is ideal, all is permitted, provided that one pleases and one seduces. 122 (G): A lawyer pleading against the daughter of a glazier whose morals he attacked, said, “the most fragile merchandise that is in the boutique of such a one is certainly the virtue of his daughter.” 123 (G): They assure me, in reading this, that a ruling of the courts prevents every man of the law from rejecting a bad case. So much the worse: I would prefer that the perfidious chicaner of bad faith should not find a defender.

Tribunals, on the contrary, are the sanctuary of the truth; to raise emotions there through factitious means is a crime (1). For the rest, truth has such force in the mouth of people of good, that if I had a case being judged, if the defenders of my adversary were Demosthenes or Mirabeau, if Fénélon or Franklin wanted to defend me. They would oppose, to the thunder of the eloquent orator of Athens or Paris, truthin all its simplicity; and their timid conscience, the purity of their mores, respected in advance by the judges and the audience, would persuade them and would make me the victor.

I promised to say a word about certain juggleries whichdishonor tribunals; that which you will read was attested tome by a man worthy of trust. A lawyer wanting to create sympathy for young pupils whom they wanted to defraud of their inheritance had them come to the tribunal bearing the marks of the grief which, given their young age, could not be in their hearts; as one may imagine, he dove into all themetaphors able to move the judges and the spectators. The late mother was like the phoenix who, to nourish her little ones, shredded her entrails. The children, on whose behalf he argued the case, were like quivering turtle doves deprived of the tenderness of their mother, who had just been pierced by a mortal arrow. The usurpers of their inheritance are like hungry vultures seeking to devour the food of innocence. Finally, for the grand finale, he seizes one of the little ones, raises him up, shows him to the judges and the spectators, an unhappy victim of his unnatural relatives; the child, who seems to be participating in all the efforts made by the lawyer to soften his world, emits lamentable cries; tears are already flowing from every eye, and handkerchiefs issue from every pocket; he can see his case already won. But the lawyer fromthe opposing side suspects some stratagem; he interrupts hisconfrere, runs to the child, caresses him, and asks him why he is crying thus: it is because he is pinching me, he cries out; andat that moment a burst of general laughter is heard from allsides of the room.

I suppose that an accused might wish to defend himself;but he lacks the means, habit, and the experience man of lawwho argues against him overwhelms him, forces him to fall silent; he arrives at the moment of being condemned; he willlose his fortune or his life. However, the judges think thatthis man has been poorly defended; they order a lawyer for him; the procedure begins once more and his innocence is recognized. What I am saying can happen, and shows that lackof means to defend oneself is baleful to the truth; that, among two men of the law, whatever they may be, the means ofeloquence are never equal; and that finally, in order to notviolate justice or truth, the facts and their proofs must beput nakedly in the balance. Not only are the ridiculous subterfuges, the dramatic exclamations, which scarcely can keep up with the improbablefacts, assaults on the truth; but what can be said of the paid solicitors, the pretty women solicitors, salaried, withgolden tongues, that one dares to employ with judges and people in high positions in order to shape opinion, and which are for them what prompters are for actors in comedies? I would like to see in France a tribunal similar to that which, they say, has been established among the Ottomans. At the borders of the empire there is a tribunal for which none of the members communicates with those pleading cases. Their names are unknown; it is Peter and Paul, or rather, Ali and Mustapha, who are in litigation. The instruction regarding the case is done in the place where the litigants live, after which the man of the law sends it to the tribunal, provided with proofs and related matters. It is under the seal of the State that everything comes to the judges; it is under the same seal that the judgment, without possibility of appeal, is sent to the tribunal whence the instruction was sent, and within a shorttime. If the litigants dare to make themselves known, or tryto influence the judges in any manner whatever, they would be instantly rejected, and condemned to a considerable fine.

For us, the material instruction in the facts is never too long; it is the incidents which one causes to occur, which hang things up and make the cases interminable. There are often twenty cases in one; the talent of our lawyers andour prosecutors is that of complications. The man whose caseis good is often condemned for having been lacking in formalmatters, or condemned by default. These vices cannot take place in the tribunal of which we speak, and the prompt resolution of the case, the lack of means for appeal, prevent the spirit of chicanery from being propagated there.It is thus that the thousands of cases of the heretofore Normans, who swim in chicanery like fish in water, should bejudged. The farmer in this part of Franc, who only has two or three cases to follow at all times, seems to override theinstinct of his climate. Their lack of country occupation, their fields, which they call pastures, occupy so little during the year, that they seem to go to court in order to have a pastime. There are certainly ways of uprooting this litigious spirit; and the first one to present itself to my imagination would perhaps be sufficient: Every man, a law of policing would say, and particular to this département, who, after having refused attempts at mediation by the justice of the peace, will file more than one suit in the same year, will be regarded as a foreigner in his fatherland for the period of three years. There would still be as many suits as there are Normans; the total, I think, would be sufficient.

Let us summarize. In order show at the same time the dangers of eloquence, whether with respect to mores, whetherfor the fallacious orator, let us say that in the councils, the tribunals, and the assemblies of the people, superficialeloquence only leads to bad results. It dazzles for a moment, I agree; it compels and causes great ills; but listen several times to this dangerous orator, and you will always find the same devices, the same turns of phrase; he has only one language, always the same audacity, he repeats the same song in every key; he begins softly, his voice becomes animated, he is thundering by the end; it is a true musical crescendo. One recognizes his prepared technique

which he uses in every case, in every circumstance, for every subject, and which he takes with him everywhere. Listen to him ten times, at the very most, and he evokes pity, if not horror. Then, before hearing him, you revoke the fine discourse that he will be owing you. After having heard him, you tremble in seeing those duped by his cunning language who make his opinion prevail. Listen, on the contrary, to the man whose means are as simple as his conscience is pure; he is always persuasive, and never wearies you; one shares his opinion while listening to him, one applauds oneself for thinking as he does, and our conscience is at rest in agreeing with him.

In private gatherings, brilliant and specious language is less to be dreaded. One smiles at the man or the woman who seduces us with the charm of her eloquence; we love her,but we do not at all believe her. “Amiable seducer”, one is tempted to say, “you compel me, but your ragged bonds give way against more solid reason, no matter how you try to tie your knots.” In a private gathering, as in public assemblies, simplicity and bonhomie persuade some and not others. It is from the entirety of the man of good, the persuasive connections between his physiognomy and his pure laconicism, that as soon as he has spoken one says to oneself: “yes, it is thus that the truth is expressed; I give in without defiance to someone who persuades me thus.” I know that by artifice too often one imitates this sweet serenity; I know that interest makes man a deceptive chameleon; but, just like him, he borrows his colors from the objects that surround him – he is a refracting mirror that has nothing real, and which rebuffs the simplest analysis.

Here is what I have to say on the dangers of eloquence.The matter is far from being exhausted; but, a tranquil artist, foreign to trials and to affairs, consternated, not knowing how to respond to the cunning that I perceive, perhaps pulled toward the sloth of the honest man, and as Favart has said:

Cédant toujours ce qui m’est contesté, Pour éviter l ‘ennui de me défendre124 ;

I agree that the honest and watchful man, who has livedin councils and tribunals, would add much to this exposé. But I leave to him without regret the unhappy experience of the shameless men who think, in their rapine, to find the well-being of fortune, in invading the goods of others. The unhappy ones! They thus fill their conscience with the serpents of remorse, which do not cease to gnaw at them until their last hour. There, however, all illusion ceases; they cast themselves into the tomb at the frightening sight of the terrible truth, which, sooner or later, comes to unseal the eyes of the perverse.

NOTE FOR THE TENTH CHAPTER.

(1) How the talents of our celebrated lawyers, or officious defenders, differ today from those of whom I speak! Their writings are models where simplicity, sweet eloquence, and above all, truth, are joined; and always their courage increases when it is necessary to protect ignorance. The time has not yet come, but someday they will be put in the balance beside some of the most famous orators of antiquity,and Themis will be just with her children as well.

There are in France some estates which are always distinguished by a severe probity; such were the curates, the notaries, the lawyers, and the low officers of the French guards. It depends on the government to modify the spirit, to elevate the sentiments of the men of many other professions which do not have the noble pride, the exalted probity of which they are susceptible. It is a duty for the government to publicly honor honest men who hold the highest

124 TN: Always giving in on that which is contested, in order to avoid the tedium of defending myself.

ran in their respective estates; it is thus that emulation is propagated, that each young man takes, in secret, for a model that one he is forced to esteem; it is thus that one forms the esprit de corps which is transmitted from century to century.

Chapter 11. On the chief virtues of the Republican.

The dangers of eloquence, about which we have just spoken, do not exist for the orator who argues the cause of the liberty of man. The ancient Greeks and romans were immortalized through their eloquence and their enthusiasm for the interest of their fatherland. It is so beautiful, itis so noble to speak for all; to say, we, never I, and to thus forget oneself for love of the public good!

The social pact of the republican presents three indispensable clauses to be fulfilled, without which no freegovernment can subsist. We may call these clauses the three social virtues of republics; if they are not known, practiced, and respected there, man must necessarily bow to a master. These are: 1. Love of the truth, 2. The reasonable and voluntary sacrifice of a part of our individual amour-propre, which we place on the altar of the fatherland; 3. The momentary sacrifice of a part of our personal interests to the republic. After having repeated this one hundred times, we will say no more about how love of truth is indispensable to the happiness of man: here, we will only add that he cannot be free without this virtue. With love for truth, one is worthy to be one’s own master; there must be an absolute master, I repeat, for men prey to errors; and inspiring liberty in those peoples whose education is only debauched, is to deliver them to anarchy, the worst of all ills.

It is difficult, you will say, to make man understand, under whichever government he may live, that he should prefer, even if only momentarily, other men to himself. In the love of the true one finds the complement of all goods; I mean to say, the sacrifice of one’s amour-propre and

personal talents; the second and third point are implicit inthe first. The multiple examples that I have included in thecourse of this writing regarding this sublime virtue, the unique basis of perfected society, obviously prove that loving order and truth is knowing how to make a slight sacrifice of ones’ interests to the public good in which we all participate.

In order to properly analyze moral abuses, we must return to their principles. Then we see that between two points, that of departure and the point at which we have arrived, the thing has been so denatured en route, that it has become unrecognizable. I would believe, with Voltaire, that

Le premier qui fut roi, fut un soldat heureux125 ;

I would believe, further, that men, often too active for themselves, and to lazy when it is only a question of the general interest, loved to be governed by virtues and talents, for which crowns and nobility where the price. But in giving their consent to making titles hereditary, did this not force the privileged beings to be denatured? Could men, above the laws, continually flattered by the crowd, remain pure and vigorous? No. One thing in its principle is often good, but it undergoes the common law, it unfailingly increases and decreases: nothing is stable, everything within us bears the imprint of human fragility. The most ancient family is thus often the most worn-out; the most noble, the most sovereign may be, at the end the most idiotic, due to the reason that it was superior, and that ithad to fade away. A prince of ancient date may today be degenerated; separated from the prejudice that supports him,he would fall into powder. It is through ridicule, a stoic republican told me, that we must reject those who pretend todistinction that we owe only to virtue and to talent. I also noted that he called all the sots and counterfeit beings monseigneur. With respect to the latter, I observed to125 TN: The first to be king was a happy soldier.

him that a hunchback could be an excellent man. I agree, he told me, but the fact is rare. He cited to me a Latin proverb, which says: Cavete signatis. Be suspicious of marked folk.

This would be a moral and philosophical point to examine: knowing whether beings made contrary to the physical can generally be pure men in the moral. Let us be permitted a brief digression on this subject.

I think that a counterfeit being is in a sort of feverish state; it is a machine whose construction is inexact. Among other things, sots criticize them, thus believing that they can rid themselves of the ridicule that we burden them with. This duple physical and moral impulse that counterfeit beings receive must render them active, aggressive, and defiant. We also note that they are thus, orthat they have spirit; and that a being who is incorrect in the physical, who turns to good, is a rare man. He knows howto scorn sots, he remains calm, he takes advantage of his natural activity, and becomes, in spite of his deformity, perhaps even because of it, a man who can serve as an example to many others, through his good intellectual qualities. With regard to exemplary mores, counterfeit beings seem to have less ambition for these, and here is why. The spirit is developed in silence, in reading, in observing, and this is what they do with more constancy thanother men, in order to redeem their physical defects throughtheir spirit, their gaiety, and their amiability. But mores consist in being moderated regarding the principal sensual enjoyments, and in this, they are not sufficiently beneficiaries of nature in order to make sacrifices of this kind. The man endowed with plenary faculties may be indulgent toward the weak, since he is strong; can respect the innocence which he can seduce; be continent, in moderating his high faculties; scorn the fatuity for which his handsome figure dispenses him…...It is usually through amour-propre that we practice the social virtues, and men pay us in praise and in considerations for these virtuous

sacrifices. But the man who is counterfeit and in poor health is devoted to all the abstinences that his regime prescribes for him; he is already hors de combat for all theexcesses, and we expect neither virtues nor sacrifices from him. Then his amour-propre renounces the glory of combat, heenjoys the little that remains for him in delivering himselfto it entirely; and often, that which is only for the well-constructed or formidable man a satisfied velleity, inappreciable to the eyes of public censure, becomes for thecounterfeit man a scandalous excess for which he is reproached and blamed.

Let us return to our object. In France, today, the enemies of the republic endlessly repeat this: It is not enough to be republican, it is necessary to have good mores. They are right; but I would also say that it is sufficient to be republican for mores to be improved each day; man’s pride is the scourge of mores, I agree; but baseness is a viler and more fecund source of immorality.

Further, if, through the example of ancient and modern republics, we proved that republican mores are as susceptible to censure as those of less free peoples, this would not be a reason to prefer slavery to liberty. With equal parts of vices and virtues compensating for each other, is it nothing for the man who is egotistic by nature to be able to constantly say to himself: I can pretend to everything; nothing today is above me that I cannot command some day in the name of the law; and if not myself, perhaps my son?

It is through noble, energetic institutions that we must preserve man from cowardice, and remind him of the justice of his rights. Particular interest degrades all men;general interest ennobles them. The festivals of a people have something imposing that even their enemies are forced to admire. The Republican feels strong, more animated with national spirit; and the slave must find himself quite petty

in the midst of such an assembled nation. The enchanting art that I have cultivated all my life can powerfully contribute to the good effect of mores in general, of ceremonies, and republican festivals; this is why we will gointo some details of this subject.

Chapter 12. On the influence of music on mores. On national holidays.

1.Opinions of the ancient philosophers on the first of thesetwo matters.

2. That men are different everywhere.3. That men, differing in their climate and language….should

be sensitive to different genres of music.4. Influence of the various climates on the men who inhabit

them.5. Regime desirable between different peoples.

6. Means that music offers us for tempering and tuning thepassions of different peoples.7. On musical institutions.

8. For the peoples of the south. Ibid.9. For the peoples of the temperate regions.

10. For the peoples of the North.11. For the savage or not very civilized nations.

12. On national holidays.12. On particular Instituters or Masters with pensions.

I.

Opinion of the ancient Philosophers regarding the first of these two matters.

Almost all the ancient legislator and the moralist philosophers have felt and stated that music directly influence mores; that changing the music of a people is truly to harm them; that harmony is the sole science which as a charm so powerful as to direct the sensitivity, and thus the through and the will of man towards all the sciences where sensitivity is necessary; that it leads him, in spite of himself, to the charm, to the love of his peer; finally, that it alone can make him such as he should be in order to live with other men in the same society.

It would be easy for me to seek out and report a thousand quotations that would support what I am stating; but I prefer to add a proof to this truth, already demonstrated by the ancient philosophers, rather than to repeat their learned opinions. Let us consider, nevertheless, that a single music would have different results, for the man whose imagination is easily excited, orfor one whose nerves are difficult to move, or, which comes to the same thing, for whom it is difficult to cause lively sensations. To the sound of a four-stringed lyre, the spiritof the Greeks rose to the clouds, while ours, excited by an entire orchestra, flitters gracefully about on the grass. Wesee that it is not an equal match, and that a lever of iron is no more powerful than a feather, depending on the localities and the object that must be moved.

Everywhere that one has wished to civilize men, the founders of nations have begun by speaking to the hearts of the savages before addressing their reason. In Paraguay, the Jesuits, who understood the art of seduction so well, sat tranquilly on the grass in order to play some flute airs there; they did not invite the nationals to approach them; but, attracted by the sweetness of the sounds, like birds in our cages which are still scarcely trained, each day they took another step, and ended up mixing into the melodious groups in order to see more closely, and coarsely blow into the enchanting instrument that that had attracted them.

II.

That men are different everywhere

Each people has its good qualities and its defects, which are given to it by its climate, its government, and the nature of its habitual occupations. All the peoples of the hot countries are endowed with a lively imagination; they are adroit, cunning, strongly amorous and melancholic. The men dwelling in a temperate zone are gay, nimble, and

flighty; they invent little, because they lack patience; butin their activity, they are capable of the greatest things. Those of the cold countries are robust, patient, inventive in mechanical things, terrible in war, resistant to any kindof fatigue; their passions, their melancholy are internal, which makes them suspicious and not very outgoing. Further, governed despotically in whichever climate, men are supple and clever; those of freer governments compliment little126, but are frank and certain in the commerce of life. For the rest, the hot countries have sometimes shown us hard and constant men. The temperate countries have had their passionate lovers, such as Héloise and Abelard in France. The cold countries have produced poets full of imagination, such as Ossian, Pope and Gesner. But although nature sometimes pleases itself to go outside its rules, it must be considered according to its general results. It is the same for men as it is for productions of the earth; it is only with care that one can acclimatize an exotic plant; while inthe country where it is indigenous, it forms, without culture, the vastest forests.127. In the arts of imagination,especially, the seed of the thing, the trait of genius is found first by the men from the hot countries128. This simple production then passes into the countries of the north, where it is perfected by gaining more strength; that is to say, the men of each climate differing from the first,subtract or add to it that which is appropriate according totheir way of feeling. The thing, thus modified, is better

126 (G): This words seems to say quite naively that which it says: compli-menteur(liar)! I am annoyed that one does not say complimentir for the infinitive of the verb. 127 (G): This reminds me of a little-known anecdote about the virtuous Malesherbes. He said, with joy, to one of his friends, I have a cedar from Lebanon! Let us go see it in my garden. They arrive. His friend, who was looking upward, ran to the cries of Malesherbes, seated on the ground, who showed him a sapling of two inches in height. 128 (G): Some authors seem to think that the poetry of the ancient bards preceded the Iliad; I try in vain to believe this assertion; I often see Ossian as an imitator of Homer; I see a Greek plant transported to the north.

for the latter, but it is degraded in the eyes of the first inventors, enemies of analysis and amplifications.

§. III.

That men, differing in their climate and language should be sensitive to differentgenres of music.

Human sensibility being different according to various

climates, passions and music, which interprets sensitivity, must follow these degrees of sensitivity129. The music of themen of the south, which retraces the accent of tender passions, is at first pleasing to all the men of the north. However, a music that is always impassioned is above their sensitivity; if they adopt it, soon they temper it with calmer inflections. The truly national music of the temperate climes is too lively, too dansante, for the peoples of the south and the north. That of the north, to put it plainly, only partially pleases the man of the south;it does not say enough, is not expressive enough for their impassioned souls. It is too heavy for the men of the temperate zones.

IV.

Influence of the various climates on the men who inhabit them.

In general, the men of the south have a secret sentiment, a secret reminiscence which tells them that we were formerly barbarians. Still today, they would impose on us through the strength of their impassioned sentiments, if we did not in turn impose on them through our physical forces, our patience in seeking out the results of each thing, and the depth of our reasoning. 129 (G): See the chapter on sensitivity, Volume 2 of the Essays on Music.

V.

Regime desirable between different peoples.

Sighing people, dancing people, striking people, how can you ever come to agreement? Through reason. Just as one is obliged to temper the sounds which make up musical intervals or chords, in order to make them bearable to the ear, it is through a reasoned temperament that you will arrive at creating harmony between yourselves (1). Philanthropy wants all men to live as brothers, and they will get tyhere, although the nature of their different passions is opposed to it: but, just as healthful winds travel through the countries of the globe, in order to heat some, and to refresh others; just as men endowed with various passions, ought, through invoking reason, virtue, communicate to each other that which is mutually lacking; without this reasonable and virtuous temperament, moral storms would always be more dangerous than those of the atmosphere130.

§. VI.

Means that music offers us for tempering and tuning the passions of differentpeoples.

It is through a music opposed to that which is natural for the various peoples, that one would come to temper theirtoo vehement passions, or to communicate energy to them. To ordain through the means of laws is violence; to captivate the senses through melodious sounds is a seduction. The difference which exists between these two means of arriving at the same goal is notable; the first means brings with it

130 (G): We will reproduce the same subject with more extensive discussion in paragraph XIII.

punishment for the one who is refractory to the laws; the second is preferable, in that it only gives pleasure to men,who obey without any penalty for their disobedience. One punishes the crimes committed, the other prevents them.

§. VII.

On musical institutions.

Musical institutions, applied to the restoration of mores, would be a seduction, certainly, but innocent and virtuous. O imitatores, servum pecus! cried Horace, in speaking of men. Indeed; if they are furious, give them calm which enchants the soul, and they will be pacified. If they are effeminate and indolent, have them hear energetic sounds, and vigor will appear in their eyes.

§. VIII

For the peoples of the south.

Peoples will always adopt the music that is fitting forthem, and which their climate inspires, unless they are provoked to adopt another. If they are happy, do not change their music; do not add even one string to the lyre, a Greekphilosopher said, otherwise you will have to deal with a popular revolution. But if a people is indolent, enervated, and this apathy is baleful to its political state, then change its effeminate music for acute sounds; replace the lyre with wind instruments; parade warrior troops in the

streets, sound the drums, and cymbals with unequal and vigorous rhythms; give men an occupation which often takes them away from the women, and in a short time the sighs of these pleasure-loving men will be replaced by energetic cries.

§. IX.For the peoples of the temperate regions.

In a brochure on music, it was said that God used the music-master of the last queen of France in order to reanimate, with his nervous chords, the downtrodden courage of the French, who needed a revolution; and, which goes without saying, to punish this young princess for her follies. This poor Gluck, a very pious man, did not expect that after his death he would be transformed into an infernal spirit to come, twenty years before the revolution,to prepare the punishment of his student, who, moreover, in both Vienna and Paris, had always heaped him with favors. But, as the author of this brochure and every sensible man thinks, the secrets of providence are infinite. We will add, however, that the causes of an event are never lacking for men, after the catastrophe.

Long after Gluck came to Paris, my music was extended through all the lyric spectacles of France, and at the concerts. My music is not as energetic as that of Gluck, but I think that it is the truest of all dramatic compositions; it accurately speaks the words according to their local declamation: I did not excite heads through a tragic superlative, but I revealed the accent of the truth which I plunged more deeply into the hearts of men. And if it is true that I contributed to giving more charm, to causing truth to be more loved in a country where all was illusion and prejudice, I provided men with the first and most eminent of the services that one could render them. Gluck came ten years after me, he seemed to say to the French: it is not enough to believe in the truth that your philosophershave revealed to you in their books; it is now necessary to

act with the energy that my vigorous melodies will be able to inspire you with…..But when I note that the partisans of my music and of that of Gluck were almost all royalists, because they were dependent on the court, I say then that the revolution had other causes more powerful still than music, and I stand by those which I noted earlier. It is, above all, the peoples of the temperate zones that are easy to lead to good mores through the charms of melody. They are not the most sensitive, but they are the most lively, the most inconstant, and consequently the quickest to follow the impulse that one communicates to them. Rarely, for them, will one need to uproot too inveterate vices, their natural mobility preserves them fromancient custom: but truth, social virtues are not more innate among them than elsewhere, and they must be inspired by sweet, sentimental institutions, such as those which we will describe in paragraphs twelve and following.

§. IX.

For the peoples of the North.

The physical and moral of its inhabitants correspond tothe harshness of the climate; this is why the peoples of thenorth are those who have greatest needs of musical institutions: a harmony which is more strongly calculated than sentimental is natural for them. They are inclined to make use of instruments whose material force strikes the ears more than the heart. The Greeks would go to combat to the sound of enchanting flutes: the drums, timpani, horns, trumpets, trombones and cymbals were born in the north. Let us make us of them to provide their energy to the effeminateand degraded man; but let the peoples who do not know urbanity, compassion, and sweet tolerance be invested with the charms of melody; let Italian opera be introduced into the cities of the north; let the musicians, the singers of this country come there, in order, so to speak, to inoculate

them with their voluptuous accents. It is for the legislators of a country, for the leading masters of social harmony to distinguish the degree of weakness or of energy which the people that they govern need in order to be happy;it is for them to determine, to make popular the proper genre of music, if they want to spare men from the revolutions which are only ever the last result of the long suffering of desperate peoples. Fear, you will say, to provide arms which can support the policies of tyrants in order to enslave the peoples! Ah! What is there that one cannot abuse? when, in the name of a God of peace, one has already slaughtered half the human race, in order to know what honors, what worship one would render to the creator ofthe universe? We imagine human legislators, whose name will be blessed from race to race. With respect to those who, in the tortuous maze of their politics, deceive the men whom they govern as despots, their final hour has sounded, they will disappear. A Marcus-Aurelius, a Henri IV, a Fénelon, worthy of a crown, can still reign alone and make their peoples happy; but an egotistic tyrant has no more place on earth when education becomes widespread.

§. XI.

For the savage or not very civilized nations.

The not very civilized man of every region, even of thetemperate zones, is more inclined to laziness than to activity. He would live only, if he was not forced, by his passions, to communicate with his peers. But love pushes himtowards women; from dawn onward, cupidity, avarice, awake him, and tell him that his neighbor’s garden is better caredfor than his; he sweats in order to surpass him. Amour-propre seizes him if he succeeds; spite, hatred, anger, ragetake their turn if they scorn or degrade what he has done, or if they wish to take his wife or his food. All baleful passions arise, as we see, from society which establishes love for women, for the children which succeed him, and the need which we all feel to provide each other with mutual

aid. But there is hardly a society which is not subjected tocertain laws protecting man and his cherished laziness (2). Since even savages need laws to safeguard that which each individually possesses, they had to name magistrates to whomthey relate when being concerned with their property. It is thus that through laziness and through interest, the most precious treasure of man, his liberty, is alienated. He seems to say: what do I care about the public weal, as long as I do my business? He does not think that if the country is invaded, if it succumbs in anyway whatsoever, all individual fortunes are annihilated. It is in these moments of crisis that the strongest or the most adroit becomes chief of the nation that he has saved, or which he has put two inches from loss, in order, in time, save it from the precipice. Then everyone seeks the favor of the new prince, in order to be able to get past other men, and even in orderto dominate them. On the one hand, the parvenu, in the excess of his delirium, welcomes, caresses, distributes favors…, this is an adorable man; everyone puts into his hands the riches of the State, to that he can give them a larger part than that which he possessed before; finally, one is so much dependent on the chief that one has just elevated and placed on the throne, that he becomes a tyrant when it seems good to him, while his dupes, then repentant, remain subjugated to him for a long time. Even if, in their oppression, they call for the help of some preponderant nation, it is through the accents of a male and warlike music that it will recall their courage. Man, as we have said, is born lazy; but pushed by the passions of pride and vengeance, he only seems to leave his state of insouciance to be imperious and ferocious. It is thus through the impulse of a sweet or vigorous harmony, which acts directly on the nerves and the fibres of the brain, that it is as easy to attenuate the habitual ferocity, as it is to inspirecourage in men degraded under the yoke of despotism. For therest, for a long time there has been no military corps without music, as there is no ruche without a trumpet, and it is the king-fly who is the only musician of his empire. There are, doubtless, various physical and moral means for

calming, for reanimating men’s courage; but the most direct and the surest is to lead them through appropriate music. Man, of whom one demands anything, argues, reasons, easily revolts; but seduced by harmony, he goes by himself to his destination: he obeys at one and the same time his inclination and the law.

§. XII.

On public holidays.

The great assemblies, whether legislative, judicial, whether of a numerous family, whether of a body of scholars such as the institute, have an imposing aspect for all men, whatever their mores and prejudices. It is there that the honest man, known for his long probity and his good spirit, is distinguished as the brilliant star of the heavens; it isthere that, surrounded by his immoralities, the perverse manscarcely dares to lift his eyes. Public holidays, above all,which gather an entire nation, elevate the soul of even the man who is most difficult to move. The idea of God is innatein man, for all men are pious; if not daily, then during thestriking and unexpected periods of their life, or at the moment of their death. But, if on waking, alone in his refuge at seeing the sun rise, the pious man sends the elan of his recognition toward his creator; joined with his brothers, mixing his homage with that of the multitude, surrounded by a majestic pomp worthy of the father of men, then he shivers, and thinks that he is seeing divine majestydescend into the midst of the people assembled and invoking its God. The most august location for these sorts of meetings is certainly a flat countryside under the vault of the heavens; but in a climate where the bad weather of the seasons, the inconstancy of weather are as frequent as they

are among us, a temple is necessary131; let it be surrounded by mysterious trees where the people can gather, from where it can hear the religious chants, if it is unable to enter the perimeter132.

In this sacred asylum, all should be grand. It is the Pantheon of Rome which should serve as model; a round shape,but yet more vast, a single opening allowing one to see the sky, an elevated area, an area reserved alone for the magistrate and respectable elders. It is there that one needs a formidable orchestra; one hundred voices, supported by an immense organ, but everything entirely veiled and hidden, in tribunes, from the view of the public; it is thenthat man approaches the God of all the nations.

Each republican holiday will be celebrated there; few speeches, they would be unintelligible for the people, unless a strong voice could be distinctly heard there. tement. Let the ceremonies never be long, let one regretfully see them approach their end. Let all the holidays begin with a hymn to the supreme Being; let it be melodic, broad, easy to remember, as every sort of popular music should be, so that everyone can add blend in his voice, or add a part to the harmony, if musical instinct invites him.

Once these hymns have been adopted by the people, let them never be changed. After a pause, during which the most august silence will reign, let a second hymn, analogous to the holiday that day, be heard: triumphant, if one is crowning on that day some magnanimous warrior who has just

131 (G): At Paris, the sun, the position of the Champs-Elysées, seems to be intended to receive this temple. 132 (G): At the setting of the sun, in a laughing countryside, what man, what traveler, in approaching a temple, has not been moved in listening to the unanimous song of an entire village assembled to invoke its God? From whatever nation this man may be, Turk, Jew, or Christian, if his eyes are not moistened, if his heart has not been moved, I would not like to be alone with him in the neighboring wood.

saved his fatherland: noble, but never lugubrious, if one iscelebrating the apotheosis of a great man whom one will theninter in the Pantheon133 : amiable, if one is celebrating theholiday of beautiful youth: rustic, if it is the day consecrated to agriculture. A second silence follows; finally, let a third and last hymn, lively, and expressing jubilation, say to the citizens: You have fulfilled your duties toward God, the fatherland, and your deserving brothers; go, people of the greatnation, go and rejoice.

§. XIII.

On particular Instituters or Masters with pensions.

One observes, in general, that men who are not musicians, or are not music-lovers, have dryness of the soulwhich can be felt in their mores, and in their creations, ifthey are authors; productions which are exact, excellent, except for this fault. Why do the peoples of the south love music so? Because they can only realize a tiny portion of their many passionate desires, and they sing the rest in theguise of allegory. Every man who sings passionately, or who promenades his fingers upon an instrument, often relates that which he cannot and dares not say in either prose or verse: and men are less dangerous when they complain of, rather than stifling, their impassioned desires. To sing

133 (G): One day when we were talking about the restoration of the Pantheon, at a particular meeting of the institute, an idea came to me which I communicated to one of my confreres, an architect. I would like, I said to him, for the Pantheon to be crowned by a colossal statue of Renown, blowing his trumpet; let the body of the statue contain an enormous organ pipe connected to a corresponding blower which is in the interior of the dome, and at the instant where the ceremony of apotheosis of the great man whom one is interring that dayin the Pantheon, let the president, in the midst of a silence, in which the spectators will voluntarily participated, pull a cord which causes the immense trumpet of Renown to sound three times.

one’s needs, one’s woes, is to be partially consoled. To enclose one’s passions in one’s heart, is not always to vanquish them, it is most often to prepare an explosion which is baleful to society and to the individual, and whileawaiting this, to deceive men with a hypocritical exterior. The art of the legislator is to nourish the sweet passions, and to push away that which can exasperate the violent passions; but he must much more often put a brake on the passions in general, which he should not excite; for, to do a thing with passions, or have a passion for a thing, is to love it exclusively, to excess, and almost all excesses are harmful to society, even those of virtue. Excepted thus thecase where a nation would be too effeminate, one never risksanything in entertaining human sensitivity, and music is that of all the arts which most stimulates and nourishes it.In comparing human passions to sounds, which form a harmony among themselves, one finds, as we have already insinuated, a singular approximation, which caused Plato and Pythagoras to say figuratively that the physical and moral universe was tobe found in its entirety in music. In fact, all musicians know that one cannont change key or scale without tempering some sounds; that perfect fifths are always a harmonic excess; that such a sound, without any tempering, leads you to keys that are relative to it, but t6hat if you leap to a distant scale, the same sound needs to be tempered in order to arrive there without effort. One can note the same play among human passions. Sweet passions have no need of tempering; with the sweet passions, one traverses all the situations of life without storms, neither for oneself or for others; but the violent passions, above all, the sad passions, need to moderated, held back by strict laws: it isthere that they must be tempered in order for social harmonynot to be destroyed. I repeat, thus, one risks nothing in entertaining sensitivity in men’s hearts; and in order to entertain it, one must make everyone musicians, more or less. The government has established a conservatory of music, where professors of all genres are paid to teach thisart; but up until the present, the only children of both sexes who are destined for the estate of musician present

themselves there, and their number is sufficient to occupy one hundred and fifteen professors. The conservatory of music is not sufficient, thus, to fulfill the great social plans of which we speak; and each individual teacher should,at the dawn of the day, begin his work with a harmonious concert performed by his students. In the evening, before orafter supper, one should also perofrm there some pieces of music in various genres134. An associate of the master of thedormitory should be a good musician. The harmonic troupe will at first be few in number, but each day it will increase, for the concerts in morning and evening will give a lively sense of emulation to the children, who each day more over will take an hour of lessons. Won’t it be necessary to have as many professors as there are different instruments in an orchestra, without counting singing? No. We have in Paris a great number of German musicians who can teach in all genres, and it is in the public schools in Germany that they are trained. But if they pronounce French poorly, you will say, can they teach the vocal part? Yes. Gluck was, I am certain of it, an excellent teacher of singing, in spite of his Germanic pronunciation. It is with composers that the best singer can each day find some way toperfect himself. But will a single professor be sufficient for the musical education of so many children? If the group is numerous, the revenue is proportional, and nothing prevents one for taking three professors instead of one. Musicians have lost much by the abolition of chapters in Frances; this is a resource that I am offering for them, andI ennoble their profession in making it also directly usefulfor mores.

I must also say a word about the subject of children who have extraordinary dispositions for some part of the 134 (G): Some pedant would certainly want me to make one hundred distinctions here, contrasting with the vices of each child the genre of music which would combat it: to raise to the sound of the transverse flute those children inclinedto cruelty; to raise a poltroon to the contrabass…...It is when one wants to demand too much that one does nothing. It is sufficient for me to entertain the sensitivity through a frequent usage of harmony; it is sufficient to have all genres of music played, so that each character finds its corrective, and appliesit to itself.

musical art. Neither the conservatory of music, nor private pensions are sufficient for them; they need to be cared for individually by the most excellent masters. However, it may be the daughter of a mender, the daughter of an apple-sellerwho is endowed with a rare voice. Here is what was done in Rome while I was there; a young man, often mutilated (3), ora poor little girl, would boldly present themselves at the house of one of the leading composers; if the student had aptitude, a beautiful voice, the master would take charge oftheir education, would have them properly attired135 and would give them two large lessons each day. But before everything, a contract was made between the master and the parents of the student, girl or boy; the former agreed to make the student able to recite on the operatic stage, sing in churches or in concerts, and the parents would assign to the master one half of what their child would earn during the span of ten years; in addition, that he could not contract any other engagement relating to his talent withoutit being agreed to and signed by his master. One understandsthat there was a powerful interest in making the student skillful as soon as possible.

135 (G): Casali, my teacher, took charge of a little beggar girl whom he had dressed, and whom he took care of, because she had a celestial voice.

NOTES FOR THE TWELFTH CHAPTER

(1)The art of marrying sounds or colors is, I think, still asecret, even for mathematics. The less one employs sounds, and especially modulations, to make an air, the less temperament between sounds is necessary. An air composed of only two or three sounds has no need of temperament. The more one uses modulations in a piece of music, the more one must temper the sounds that compose it for them to be mutually in tune.

D’Alembert spoke one day while I was present, and I wasa young man then, about temperament, and about the little bridges that one places on the sounding string in order to divide it, and to then calculate the divisions which form the musical intervals. Don’t forget, I said to him, the places occupied by your bridges, which take up some part of the string. He seemed struck by this observation. An organ builder told me that a pipe placed in the organ next to a small or large pipe, raises or lowers it. If, after having almost finished his picture, a painter decides to cover one of his figures with a scarlet drapery, he feels forced to add a thousand nuances in the whole of the picture. If he adds a drapery of a tender color, it forces him to temper a hundred spots that for this reason seem hard.

(2) Even in our great and most policed societies we only work in order to be able to be able to one day be lazy and entirely at our ease. We see the merchant promise himself tranquility in his country house when he will have, he says,filled out his fortune; but most often he has acquired the habit of gain to such an extent that he becomes bored amidsthis country labors, whose sweetness he can no longer appreciate.

(3) Happily, one no longer mutilates in Italy in order to make soprani. I remember the story of a famous castrato which was told in Paris by an ambassador from Naples. “Have you heard the famous N., Monsieur Ambassador? ---Yes, he sings well, but he is an ingrate. ---How is that, an ingrate? --- “Here it is. He was a little commissioner at the gate of my palace, I noticed that he had a superb voice,I had him dressed, feed, I paid for his music teacher and the surgeon who did his operation: And you know, he never thanked me!”

Chapter 13. On permitted lies.

Since, in the entire course of this work, we have revealed to what extent the lie too often replaces the truthin the various actions of men, it is appropriate to present some circumstances where faking, fiction, or lying seem to be inevitable.

Not every truth is good to say, we are taught by a proverb which is as old as the first man. However, this old maxim does not say that lying is permitted, or even to be tolerated; but that on many occasions, we are not obligated to reveal a truth that would be harmful to our interests or to those of another whom we wish to spare. I am annoyed thatit is necessary to compose with the truth; but nature teaches us that there are circumstances where the dissimulation of the truth is as natural as an eclipse of the sun. How many ruses are employed by the fox, the cat, the spider, in order to catch chicken, mice, flies! The interest of their preservation causes a continual butchery among the animals, who, almost all, feed mutually upon each other, and man comes last to devour everything: for, if an animal may be repugnant to him as food, his pelt or some other part of his being is first useful, and then necessary to him through the habit of using it. How many ruses we use in war! And which we view as permitted because they are reciprocal. If Lycurgus, in his republic, had not permitted theft, as long it was done with skill, for the law punished the clumsy thief who was discovered in the act 136 ; if the instinct for deception, so dear to the human race, had not

136 (G): As it is nearly impossible that, sooner or later, a theft will not be discovered, certainly a time was set after which the burglar was absolved by thelaw.

been protected by the laws of Sparta, what a superb and new code of morality we would have to propose to the men of our century! What pens eager for immortal glory would develop, in the greatest detail, all the ways for lying well, for stealing, and deceiving one’s peer with as much grace and spirit as skill!

Lycurgus well knew man and the nature of the government that he wanted to establish in order to defend himself against his invading neighbors, but it seems that hehad yet another idea, that of abandoning man to his instinctin order to force him to be true. He seems to have said to himself: “If I forbid to you free women to give themselves, you will forge a thousand lies in order to seek them out foryourself; and if you are dissembling in this capital point of your mores, soon your discourse, your actions will only be a fabric of lies; ah well! In order to choose them well, in order tear away the veil of hypocrisy, see them nude in the public games; content your desires, but do not lie at all. It is an amorous novel that in your delirium you will not fail to compose in softening your mores; no, it is moraltruth, it is the military spirit that I wish to establish. No prestige in natural things; be a man, valiant, see each thing for what it is, and be true in everything. To claim todisagree with you about your own sensations, this is impossible; if I deceive you, you will deceive me. For me the immensity of the universe remains; a thousand fabulous divinities that I will tell you to invoke, and who will never accuse me of having abused your credulity. People of Greece, you are born spiritual, adroit; if I forbid theft, you will violate my law, and you will not steal less, for you do not fear death137. Ah well, take charge of the goods 137 (G): We know that a Spartan, having stolen a young fox, hid it in his garments; that he let his entrails be devoured, and fell dead without complain in order to not be discovered and punished by the law. In our days, a young ostler who had likewise stolen and hidden in his shirt a few pieces of quicklime, descended into the river in order to water his horse there, which perhaps carried him farther than he had wished. His cries: I am burning, I am burning, help me! resounded on the riverbank (for he was not Greek); but his fellow citizens only responded with bursts of laughter, and he fell dead from his horse into the river, having his entrails roasted.

of others; but be adroit, or else you will be punished. Once more – you want women? Here they are. You want the possessions of another? Take it: it is sufficient for me to make you truthful and brave.” How many honest people, stilltoday, would like to be true that this price! But the laws of Lycurgus, who wanted to make an alert and warrior people in order to oppose them to enemies always ready to descend upon him; these tolerant laws, fitted to the passions of theGreeks – were they appropriate for all peoples? No. They were only appropriate for a handful of men enclosed in a tight circle, who wanted to defend themselves against an enemy that surrounded them on all sides. The city of Sparta was, so to speak, continually in a state of siege, and we know that then it is necessity alone that makes the law.

Robespierre wanted to imitate Lycurgus, when, in order to make us warriors, and able to resist the enemy which surrounded France, he made his efforts to annihilate the arts. He did not think that the arts had never been introduced in Sparta; he wanted to establish among us, and in a few days, that which can only be the work of time, of mores, and of habit. The imitators of great men have always been their insignificant parodists, because it is quite rarethat the same thing is presented twice accompanied by the same circumstances. What a difference between our position and that of the Spartans! Our critical situation was momentary, and we had twenty-five million men. The Spartans were always on the verge of being attacked, and they were few in number.

The mores of twenty-five million men, or rather from thirty to thirty-five million, after the restoration to France of the conquered country, cannot be those of a littleState surrounded by enemies. Sobriety, courage, vigor, the art of nimbly taking booty from the enemy, the talent of preserving one’s own goods…...all these qualities are appropriate to it inasmuch as the arts and sciences are useless, and even harmful. But what would an immense people without the resources of commerce, the sciences and the arts

become? Here, it seems to me, is the natural march of men joined in a great society: first, they work in order to live, and are enriched by their savings. If they arrive at fortune, they allow themselves more ease; then a well-decorated house, valets, horses…. Each rich man causes a hundred persons to live through his superfluous expenditures, and those who work for him are enriched in their turn. Will you put obstacles preventing everyone from enriching themselves through legal means? Will you determinethe fortune that one can acquire? Will you prevent luxury and public games? Finally, will you establish sumptuary laws? This is ordering the rich to live as if they were poor; it is treating France like Geneva and Lucca, formerly little republics; it is to confuse one with a thousand; it is annihilating any kind of emulation; it is forcing man to become a miser, a hoarder, a hypocrite; it is thus that through tyrannizing, oppressing, persecuting the Jews, we have made them Jews. It is thus evident that all that is fitting for a small society of men is not all fitting for a numerous population; and that France, through the measures, the wise and never outrageous laws that it adopts, will be the nation par excellence. The Greeks and Romans have reigned; it is time for the French to fix universal opinion;and if the capital point, if truth respected in everything, becomes the holy dogma of the enlightened and omnipotent French, everything promises us a moral perfection and a longer continuity of existence than that of the peoples who preceded us and who began our education. ---But, you will say, these peoples ended despite their so much boasted frankness! ---Yes, because everything must come to an end, and the strong must dominate the weaker. The Greeks tore each other apart, Alexander subjected the Persians and the Greeks; the Romans vanquished the land; the French have arrived at the greatest strength and have just vanquished almost all the nations. — If the entire north got along better, and joined together against France, says the old monarchist, it would end up vanquishing her. – A fine wish!But to what good end this coalition, this incursion which has just failed? France wants general happiness, it desires

that men, land and seas be free, and Alexander and the Romans, on the contrary, wanted to subject the whole earth; and we, through our love for universal liberty, through our philanthropy and our esteem for the sciences and the arts; finally (and this is the final vow of virtuous men), throughour respect for the truth, we will win every heart, beyond which, through our political forces, we fear no one. --- Time, time certainly brings changes! our old malcontents still say. – Yes, but at least, do not repress the desires of the honest man; do not even doubt that the experience of the past, the unanimous efforts of educated people, do not give superior results, and cause us to arrive at a moral perfection that never existed.

We will ask at present whether, as is presumable, the great States of Europe, or neighboring Europe, adopt the loyal and philanthropic system of France, the states inferior in force being all compelled by their example, whether, I say, the superannuated policy of the European powers can exist much longer in the future? Here is what wasthe language of the former diplomacy, more or less: “Tackingis a tortuous path, but the only one practicable for advancing, as little as this may be, when the wind does not push the vessel directly to its destination. A formidable power demands that which it desires; a weak nation demands that which we grant it; and between I want, which is absolute, and I want, which is only conditional, there are a hundred little means of evading the refusal that one dreads.Sometimes one presents as universal justice that which is just only with respect to one’s own interests; one shows, asmuch as one can, that you gain through making a voluntary sacrifice. Finally, if the negotiation does not have a favorable outcome, one has proved to you in advance that youlose as much as the one who wanted to have everything. Theseprocesses are necessary in politics in order to manage an honest retreat; it is a palliative prepared to console humiliated amour-propre, and to not compromise the dignity of nations.” Here, I say, is the language of the former diplomats. But, it is necessary to abandon these maladroit

subterfuges, which we see come like the cloud that will for a moment obscure the sun. True dignity is not to lie; and France will set an example through disdaining this sort of political chess game, as it has often disdained it in the tactics of its armies.

Although the fine arts have geometrical results, through the proportions that they observe in forms, distances or the number of vibrations, they are far from obeying strict mathematical truth. Their rigorous goal is toplease; it matters not by which method they attain this. If our senses are defective, as the physicians would have it, the arts should lend themselves to the defectiveness of our senses. It is on our docility to their amiable fictions thatthe sweetest pleasures of life depend. Who does not know that after having lost one’s child, one’s friend, one’s girlfriend, there is no wealth that could pay for the canvasthat represents to us, feature for feature, these cherished objects! You will say that too many men are involved in the arts which simply please; we will answer that one cannot overly amuse the rich and unemployed man with productions ofthe arts; that the malady of the rich is to stockpile, and that the stagnation of fictive wealth is baleful to society,since it makes as many egotists as it does rich proprietors.Arts and luxury, in a great State, divide the fortunes that avarice and ennui want to accumulate. Finally, we will say that the man of leisure, rich or poor, is the scourge of society; and that every man, who owes his wealth to his activity, would often deliver himself to all the vices, if he did not have the temple of the arts for asylum.

If, as we have said at the beginning of this chapter, deception is natural to animals, when they wish to seek their subsistence, it should be even more so when it is a question of an even more pressing need, perhaps, although this is not daily. Nourishment is found in the fields, the strong devours the weak in order to be nourished by him; butthe need to reproduce depends on the will of two animals, and in this case nature does not permit absolute violation.

What little ruses, what coquetries, what desire to please dowe not observe in animals as well as in the human species! The vow of nature is so pronounced on the need for the preservation and general reproduction of the species, that it allows seductions and ruses, against those which are different in being obeyed. Are these deviations culpable? No, because nature inspires them. But there are ruses that are permitted, and others that are criminal. 138 The animal never uses decisive violence against his female, and man is punishable when he employs it. Clarissa, in the novelby this name, deserves, through her imprudences, almost all the torments that she endures; but her modesty should be respected by her lover; and if the author of this fine work,not being able to unite the most amiable scoundrel with the most virtuous woman; not knowing what to do with his heroineat the end of his story, had not needed to make her die, I doubt that he would have had Lovelace commit an atrocity like that of using a sleeping pill to defile the modesty of his charming prude.

Such are the cunning devices for which it would be dangerous to blame man, since nature suggests them to him. Except for this case, and some others also easy to grasp, there is no good, no happiness for him without veracity. I know that to ask men to constantly remain in the path of truth is ask the wisdom of them that is only obtained through triumphing over the passions; that this triumph consists in being moderate in our desires; in only taking a unity when chance seems to promise many; to be unendingly with the compass in our hands in order to regulate our fierydesires, which always over-shoot the measure of our needs. But since abandoning oneself to one’s passion is to precipitate oneself, and since resisting them reasonably is

138 (G): I feel that the few words that we have just said on the lies occasionedby love, are not sufficient, and that this important subject deserves to be treated separately. This is what we will try to do in the following chapter. Allmoral subjects are linked with each other so much, that they attract each other;in order to develop a word said in passing, a chapter is needed; chapters make volumes, and on this subject the source is inexhaustible.

to doubly enjoy the present while contemplating a future exempt of pains and remorse, we should be decisive in our choice. In habituating oneself to follow the impulse of the truth; in asking oneself; is what I want true? Is it just? Would I like to have that which I want to do done to me? With the answer of our conscience never being equivocal, we have a sure guide, and every means of being happy. But is one always the master of directing one’s passions? — No, when we are carried away by them; yes, when they begin to arise. For the rest, one must choose: moderate enjoyments, or remorse; delights, or torments; throne of the virtues, orthe scaffold; which do you prefer? –The choice is not doubtful, but…... — But what! you fear to measure yourself against your enemies? Go, the sage has said it: reason, or truth, requires nothing that is beyond human forces. Cowardly soldier! Do you prefer complaining to combat? Do you prefer to compose with the tyrants of your heart, than to defeat them? Here are the last retrenchments of the impious: what is the point of so many pains and privations in order to arrive at this purification of mores, if we have so little assurance of existing after this life, which only lasts a moment? Is not the easiest and surest thing to seek, in whatever manner, everything which flatters the senses? This is how some sensual and immoral libertines speak, true pigs of Epicurus, who secretly blush at their abject state, whilethe philosophers of every age have believed that happiness lies in virtue; that the virtues consists of directing one’spassions, in resisting the vagabond senses, in rejecting pleasure when they wish to dispose of our being and treat usas slaves; finally, that the virtues are all in love of order, and horror of lying.

Chapter 14. On lies of love.

It is because amorous desires of the greatest necessitythrough leading to the reproduction of beings that they are the most violent of all those which sensitive species experiences: thus nature wishes it. It is because these desires are violent and because they make us egotists that asort of shame accompanies them, and forces us, in the presence of the object that excites them, to dissimulation. Voluptuous desires would only offer us repulsive pictures, if two virgins, as pure as they are timorous, Fear and Modesty, were not the faithful companions of desired or satisfied pleasure. But, once desires are shared, egotism ceases, and shame diminishes with the violence of the desires. There is no more shame when all desires are satisfied: two sated lovers give, so to speak, a habitual course in anatomy, they dishonor love. Lovers, separate, then; the crucible of love only boils with the fire of desires, and in the furnace of the imagination.

Since all of the world’s morality has intimate connections with this powerful motive, after men reflect, one is worried about the definitive position that moralists will take regarding laws relative to pleasure. How many sages have not harmed their reputation in this area! How many pure men have only bowed on this point! How many men ofgood mores have only failed in the eyes of the vulgar regarding this subject, always a matter of argument! And what will we say about women, who, being able to render equivocal our rights to paternity, are, with reason, overwhelmed a thousand times more than we are by the weight of opinion! On this point, let us put man in accord with himself, if it is possible, and then, without suspicions, without moral reticences, we will have sages, honest men as pure as the light of day, as pure as virginity itself.

It is useless to conceal it, in spite of the clamors of

immorality, we constantly scorn the shameless libertine or hypocrite, as we bear a forced respect for the man who, still in the age of passions, has managed to tame pleasure. Have you noticed? The people, itself, when it names the crapulous libertine of the highest stage, does not honor himat all with the title of monsieur or citizen, unless when speaking direct to him. Then, it is fear of compromising itsinterests that compels it to use these honorable titles. Whythis scorn for the libertine? Because, without reserve, he abandons himself to his voluptuous penchants, and we supposethat he is equally incontinent in all the other points of his morality? — Is it fair to draw this conclusion? — Yes, in general. The voluptuary, who knows how to give order to his tastes, limit his desires, respect decency, virtue, and the laws of the land where he lives, can be an man who is estimable in all points; his favorite passion being satisfied, he can, he should even easily repress the movement of his other dangerous passions; this man is not a libertine, he is a voluptuary, but a friend of order; he would deprive himself of his happiness rather than pervert innocence; finally, he summons pleasure, he sees with delight the good that he is offered, and profits by it. The libertine, on the contrary, deceives girls and women; if he has money, power, he uses both to seduce, to suborn all the objects that tempt him, and it is sufficient for him that there be resistance for him to be tempted. We recall this so-called grand seigneur, who, not being able to seduce the daughter of a peasant, set fire to his cottage at night, andin the confusion of the blaze, abducted his child. If the libertine is king in this world, to be his courtier, one must be his Mercury. We cannot believe that a man, abandoned in such a way to his dominant passion, has the strength to govern his other passions. No, we cannot believe this; the passion that subjugates him has too despotic a command over his being; to satisfy it, he sacrifices everything to it, virtue, decency, and probity. The vices go hand in hand, as do the virtues. Too happy, if the infamous libertine remainsabsorbed in his pleasure to the point of being null for manyother immoral passions; but if he is rich and powerful, he

causes it to happen in his place: he has all the vices, himself, or through borrowing.

Why this blind trust, this respect for the temperate man? Because we believe, and this is not without reason, that he has mastered all the subversive passions, since he commands love; if he does not command it absolutely, let them throw a veil over its mysteries, let him cause the hourconsecrated to the sacrifice to be unknown: the men whom we honor would not have merited our constant respect if, formerly, we had seen them leaving their boudoirs, sated.

Lies of all types belong to love, whose moral existenceis only a continual fiction. How not to qualify with the name of lie the protestations of an eternal love that the majority of men make to all amiable women? Will you say that they are in good faith, that they believe that their love is true, that passions perceive no limits…. let us say rather, that, through their own experience, they know that they exaggerate, but that, with reason, they think that every woman who believes that she is still of an age to please (and we feel that this judgment is often suspect), that every woman, I say, to whom a man does not once bear witness to a desire for intimacy, becomes his secret enemy. The gracious greeting that we receive from women of our acquaintance means I remember that you courted me; as that of the women whom circumstances offer to us for the first time signifies I order you to love me. Imposture is familiar to lovers,since they all lie to get an advantage. Calumny is another of their resources; for in order to favor those, or everything that leads to the desired goal, they easily sacrifice the reputation, the interests of those who condemntheir delirium. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, enamored of every amiable woman, or of the eleven thousand virgins when the object is undetermined, and always unhappy in his loves, shows us thatit is not the man of truth who can seduce women. We say it once again, love is only a commerce of seduction, and no manwas less able to feign than he. In addition, in spite of hispassions, almost ridiculous through the force of their

sincerity, he preserved our esteem, since he was true. If hehad known how to lie, he would have been more cherished by the ladies, happier in general, for I have certainly noted in his writings that his moroseness stemmed from the need tolove, without being able, through his philosophical allure, to captivate any distinguished woman. He speaks often of women, but he says things either too bad or too good about them for us not to think that he looked on them while despairing. I repeat, if he had been less truthful, he wouldhave had less merit with the posterity which pardons him forhis amorous follies, which he paid too much for through his non-success, his sighs, and his tears. — Is it possible, youwill say, that, having been amorous for his entire life, with such a burning heart, such an excited imagination, he was not the prey to the lying delirium of lovers? — No, I donot think so at all. I am persuaded that he, like everyone else, told a thousand amorous lies, with which he is not concerned in his Confessions, because he only regarded them as belong to the same level of the combats of loves, and notat all as true lies.

Today the mores of the boudoirs have experienced as many changes as military tactics have. Formerly, warriors ran up and rapidly ended their wars through combat to the death; today, the generals are occupied with Machiavellian tactics, and even love has its Machiavellianism. Among our ancestors, love was eager, talkative, and more sincere than among us; oh, how our modern lovers have taken a different allure! Adept in the amorous science, they no longer talk, do not say a word about the sentiments that they experience,and with which they mutually inspire each other. The woman shows all her graces, and seems to disdain, or at leas ignore the presence of the man for whom she makes a thousandconcealed advances. She knows that in showing her love for him she will immediately cease to be love. According to the character of the man, which she has instantly divined, she is able to grant him enough for him to hope, or to show him enough coldness that he will be piqued. The man plays more or less the same comedy: he shows off his beautiful thigh,

he takes off his frill so that one can look at his handsome face, he tugs at his vest at the bottom edge, and if some woman turns to look at this operation, he is sure that she knows why. He sings the little rondo of the actor who is in fashion like an angel; speaks well, without pretention; letsit be understood that he has just been fighting, without saying a word about his bravura; all this with an little easy air as if it were the simplest thing in the world. And to whom do we think that he is addressing this hodgepodge ofdissimulations? It is to his friend, his compere, or to the woman whom he does not concern himself with at all; but he knows that he is being listened to, observed from the cornerof the eye of the woman whom he wishes to seduce. Speaking to her, he will, at most, hazard this declaration: I do not wish to see you more, madame, for, by my word of honor, I think that I will love you. To which the woman, as skillful as he, answers: No, monsieur, see me no more; your amorous cares are too much sought after by women for them to be lost with me. And so the attack having begun, our amiable couple squabbles so much and more, well persuaded that war is the element of peace. If this peace delays too much in being concluded, there is a more rapid means of arriving at this end. Someone must shred the reputation of this beauty, he must show himself publicly as her knight, fight for her, even be dangerously wounded in order to uphold her honor: then his honor truly expires; onecannot resist the vows of such a charming victor139.

Our mores have entirely changed; insipid gallantry is no longer in fashion. In order to censure our galant mores and the operas of Quinault, Boileau assures us that

Jusques à je vous hais, tout s'y dit tendrement140;

but we have reformed all this, and

139 (G): In reading this chapter, a very amiable woman assures me that for a year already men do not fight each other over women. The only means, she says, for a man to become familiar with a woman in fashion, is to tear her down without pity. 140 TN: Up to “I hate you”, everything is said tenderly.

Je vous aime (chez nous) se dit en persiflant141.

Since the game of love, in the varieties it offers us, is an inspiration of instinct, let us not be too severe in the judgment we bear of men devoted to the pleasures of love, if they look after themselves sufficiently so as not to trouble moral order. Life seems to be given to us with two primordial conditions; the first, to reproduce ourselves; the second, to die in order to return to the common mass the clay that it has lent to us. We have said, we scorn the libertine; but we more hate, and find ridiculous to the nth degree, the vegetable-man who makes the germ of his reproduction useless. Nothing more causes the heart of the honest man to smile like a numerous family frolicking on the grass; and to complete this patriarchal picture, let us pose the father and mother at a nearby cradle smiling at this view that renews their love once more. Whether this marriage is contracted in the name of nature or of whatever god, our conscience approves, it alonedoes not deceive.

Nature wanted all goods to be in common, but the laws necessary for society have regulated the divisions. The benefits of love are of a different order; they only belong to those who are worthy of them, and to whom the [female] accords them. From this follow a thousand efforts to please,and equally many to dissimulate one’s defects. It is a game of chess, where one piece often decides the match.

Between woman and man, love has different results, since only the woman bears the fruit of the union; but on the other side one can assign the man a supremacy of which he seems worth. There exists, at the same time, between man and woman a similarity and a dissimilarity for which almost all of morality is the result. Is woman the counter-example for man? Or is everything about her different, or is it the same upon being tested, but weaker and paler? Or rather, areman and woman two imperfect compositions for which one waits141 TN: “I love you” (chez nous) is said through insults.

for the other as its complement? In effect: in the physical,what would be the use of the principal organs of the woman if the man did not make them useful? What would be the use of man’s faculties if woman possessed them equally? On oneside there is less, on the other there is more; it thus thatthe household of the spouses becomes necessary.

In the moral, what would the woman abandoned by man be?In the forests, she would be miserable through her weakness and her natural incommodities, and often the prey of tigers,especially at the moment of being a mother. In policed society, she is a little tyrant who wants us to have everything that she is lacking; who wants us to be brave because she is timid; who demands our exclusive adoration, while she wants to seduce all the men who please her, and even those who do not please her at all, in order to give herself the pleasure of rejecting them after the seduction; who wants to dominate although weak; who replaces strength, spirit, education through ruse and subtlety, not to mention the counter-ruses which are familiar to women, for they often play at stupidity to mask their subtleties. How many husbands think they have but a good woman, quite simple, quite honest, who, however, is neither one or the other! Sheleads her husband who thinks to direct her, and takes vengeance in secret for his infidelities, which he thinks gounpunished. In the household, if she wants to disgust us regarding a woman whose amiability she dreads, she pretends to love her as much as we do, then they are two against one,and the defensive becomes our role. If she wants to send away from your house the man she does not love, that she no longer lovers, or whom she has not been able to please, or your intimate friend, whom she never loved, because she fears to see your authority become still stronger at the expense of hers, she takes the surest means: she pretends toespecially love the one that she detests; some tête à tête that she arranges with him, some jewelry when one receives him, some stifled sighs when he leaves….then worry defeats us, you receive your best friend coldly, he moves away, and your wife triumphs. But let us halt, let us manage our

masters; let us manage those who dispense our felicity; one would think, and one would be wrong, that I expect neither reward nor happiness from them.

Such is the inextricable labyrinth, the moral nonsense of love. How, in this tortuous labyrinth, to avoid the thousands of lies by eyes, facial expressions, words, deeds,and gestures? If one could, would it be advantageous for this whole amorous rubric not to exist? No, for if the contracts of love were made like all other contracts, activity, fermentation would be banned; the natural act would be cold, without delirium, and this delirium is necessary for the reproduction of beings, as in the creations which only have to do with the spirit of man, and which are only imitations of nature. Desires, constraint arefor love that which is the flame surrounding the container of boiling liquid. We will not say that moral laws should render the woman sovereign in the amorous domain, for these would be vain defenses. The man in possession of the scepteris king in his house; he loses his throne if he loses its uses; he is in civil war, if others come to command with him. The laws which would repress amorous messages are thus useless, love, through its incessant activity, would render them illusory, and this would exclude from the theory of love that which it has that is most piquant and most amiable. Buffon says that the morality of love is worth nothing, and that only the physical is good. He speaks as a man who would have regretted losing one day for study and for his glory. If Buffon thought thus, lovers also have strong reasons for believe that one day lost to love is an irreparable damage. Friendship alone, true friendship, is not suspected of any interested sentiment. The time of loveris that of the beautiful days of life, certainly; but beneficent nature as provided for the needs of all ages; at sixty, one senses the calm return after the storm, one senses that, in order to live happily, a sweet and more pureunion becomes necessary: finally, holy friendship succeeds love.

Chapter 15. On the faculties necessary between two individuals, in order to be able to

contract bonds of friendship.

Love occupies the summer and the fall of life; the friendship which preceded love, and follows it, occupies thespring and the fall. Except for the time where love dominates us, everyone should feel the need for friendship; and if, among two young friends, one remains subjugated by love, the generous friendship of the other can still serve him as a guide much more sure than the seductive torch of the god of Cytherea.

The impulse of instinct should suffice for a man for determining his choice of a friend; but so many moral interests occupy his thought, that friendship itself is onlythe result of his calculated interests. And also we only seeourselves in this world as friends of three days: the first day one seeks another, the second we feebly join, the third,we separate; today, this man shares my opinion, thus, he loves me; tomorrow, he no longer thinks as I do, thus he no longer loves me. It is evident that it is personal interest that decides for one, as for the other, and that there is nofriendship where egotism reigns so imperiously. However, in a thousand occasions in life, we desire a being who is interested in us, a second self; then, and in haste, we consult the physiognomy of our supposed friends, we seem to say: do you love me? I need to open my soul to friendship: Ineed advice and support. Vain desires! Useless efforts! It was necessary in advance to have made ones’ provisions in order to dispose of them when needed. It is not at the moment of the fire that we fill the reservoir of the fluid which can extinguish it; we must, then, have a sure friend, before feeling the need for friendship. Instead of interesting in you the indifferent one to whom you confide your pains, take care! Through amour-propre, he displays theprudence that he uses on such occasions; he adroitly makes you feel that he was not a dupe, as you are. This one takes a doctoral tone, as if he possessed the remedy for every

ill; he shows you a pedagogue, and not a helpful friend. This other one maintains a scornful silence, or says two words to you: I can do nothing about it, which redouble yourdistress, rather than dissipating it. They humiliate you, wound your heart, rather than bringing consolation and peace.

What indications can allow us to recognize the man whose friendship we should seek out? Must he have with us, or us with him, considerable, little, or no connections? Inasmuch as our forces allow, it is this that we will examine with all the attention that such an important subject for humanity requires, already so often analyzed by moralists of the leading rank, who are far from having exhausted the matter.

The ancient proverbs almost contain great meaning; but since they cannot say everything in only a few words, they are general, and subject to many explanations and exceptions. According to these, for example: qui se ressemble, s'assemble; dis-moi qui tu hantes, je dirai qui tu es142, it would seem that we all search someone who resembles us; however, we note theopposite, since everyone constant wish to rise, to leave hisordinary sphere, which cannot be done except by approaching those who have faculties that we do not, and which we desireto possess as they do. In a village fete, I was amusing myself one day in examining the little rapprochements takingplace in the midst of the large group; I saw, almost everywhere, a vigorous gallant courting an Agnès, or a lively and smart girl provoking a fool. It is through amour-propre that we love the being whom we can dominate, just as it is through a feeling of weakness that we prefer the beingwho can protect us if necessary. It also happens sometimes, through a redoubling of amour-propre, that the strongest make the attack; but this is surpassing themselves, in order to prove their reciprocal superiority, and not at all through natural reconciliation; yes, to prove

142 TN: those who resemble each other get together; tell me who you haunt, and Iwill tell you who you are.

his sufficiency is one of the first needs of the moral man. With respect to the weak, they avoid each other rather than seeking each other out.

I would believe that too uniform characters mutually weary each other, since they have little connection between them. Perhaps connections are needed between characters, without them being too much. Some examples will better elucidate that which we presume to be true.

A religiously devout person does not sympathize with animpious person, certainly; but two of the devout, of equal strength, fit each other less than a Molinist and a Jansenist, or than a Deist and an atheist, who have something to argue about. There is no nourishment between homogenous substances, one does not devour oneself; we love to incorporate in ourselves a foreign substance in order to make it ours, in order to confiscate it for our profit. Finding a friend who is other than we are, is to double the sum of the faculties common to the two; it is to bring new means into the household of the friendship. I say, then, that acquiring that which we already have in part is not gaining in as much as taking possession of a thing that was outside us, which pleases through the attraction which all new things have for us, finally, of a thing which persuades us that we have multiplied our being.

In music, everything is said when the chord is perfect (1) ; we then desire dissonance in order to resolve it once more.

It seems that the moral commerce of the men of this world is only a fabric of resolved doubts and vanquished difficulties. Likewise, the elements of nature seem to dispute the dominion of everything that exists; they take power and mutually chase all the beings in order to make them live, perish, and regenerate once more.

It is according to himself that Montaigne studied man,

and this is the best way to know him; for, in lending our inclinations to others, we suppose that they are made and sentient like ourselves; if we are mistaken on their account, it is because they are others. I have thus noted for myself, that, among men or women still at an age to perfect their characters, I voluntarily attach myself to individuals regarding whom I sense a superiority of judgment. Their disorder irritates me, I would like to correct it, and as God is my witness, this is purely throughlove for the truth, such as I sense it, and not at all in order to dominate them. Thus the time passes with often-useless hopes. Show me the being entirely similar to myself;or, that which is easier to find, a being whose faculties, whose talents have striking connection with my own; this being will not interest me as much as the one of whom I havejust spoken. Certain of his approbation in everything, his identical ideas not producing any kind of shock with mine, we will soon weary each other. Moral monotony, like physicalputridity, is engendered everywhere where there is no movement. Finally, this too amiable man, this second myself will become unbearable for me, and in order to be rid of him, I will, so to speak, be tempted to send him for a walk in my place, when I need to get some exercise.

According to this reasoning, based, it seems to me, on the equivocal nature of man, who, through, amour-propre always abounds in his sense; who is always too much or too little, too high or too low, because he does not know precisely the point where he should fix himself; who is never good enough nor wicked enough to be one; it is evidentthat we love and that we ought to love in another that whichis lacking in ourselves. We will see, thus, the one who has much subtlety and spirit seek out the man who has more than he does in simplicity and natural instinct. This is why La Fontaine was, and is still loved by all people of spirit; especially by those for whom the genre of spirit is elaborated with difficulty, which is the ordinary spirit; this is an homage that art renders to nature.

We have often compared the witticisms of the spirit to a sneeze; there is, however, a difference between sneezing naturally, or through the aid of art: La Fontaine, if you like, sneezed from a sunbeam, and it is through the stimulusof Spanish tobacco, or any other kind of foreign body, that less natural or more artificial than his seek and receive this convulsion.

Two liars will soon weary each other, because they havetoo many connections with each other. It will be the same for two extremely honest individuals, whose overly congruentsentiments excite no movement in them, no desire for a more ample perfection.

The man who is overwhelmed with timidity and indecisionruns to support himself on the man who is endowed with a notable stability in his character. The latter loves the softness of the former, it tempers his haughty or ferocious humor, and his excesses of all kings: this is rather a female companion, rather than a journeyman for his labors. He is subject to such an extent to the wills of his dominator that he is entirely passive when he has spoken, and even during his master’s absence, his weapons, his habits still protect him.

A sick man is fortified when seeking those in robust health; and this is not only an effect of the imagination, for every man laid low with consumption is fortified, is re-established through living in a stable, if he is brought there before one of his chief organs is destroyed.

He who is born with a genius, a spirit that often transports him beyond the limits of reason, should seek out the man with an exact sense. Likewise, a general and superficial memory needs to be corrected through a local andprecise memory. To say that these faculties do not differ from each other is an error. To say that we absolutely love the opposite of our faculties is another error; but it is evident, however, that we give less value to that which we

have than that which are lacking and which we desire; and that the being the most protected by his amour-propre loves and desires the best of that which he possesses, if he is able to appreciate it; that he should cherish the correctives for his weaknesses, as he hates the flat parody of the faculties, the real talents with which he feels he isendowed. I doubt, in fact, that he could have sufficient strength to judge and cherish in others the talents more eminent than his own, if they are of the same genre.

The man who is too weak and too empathetic trembles in the face of the just severity of the strong and courageous man. In his pusillanimous dreams, he sees formidable Hercules, as the tyrant is frightened by the redoubtable proem of Brutus143.

We will say nothing about the connections that are found between lovers, we will soon examine what the influences of love on mores are. One cannot confuse friendship with love without degrading it. The amorous flames, similar to elemental fire, consume all that which nourishes them, and are extinguished when they have devouredall. On the contrary, friendship lives peaceably from the elements which constitute it; more sensible than love, it manages them in order to prolong its happiness; it is as prudent, as frugal amidst its treasure, as love is senselessand spendthrift. We will add as well that love is not friendship, since one takes as a mistress the woman with whom one would blush to be united; since one desires, even violently, the favors of the woman that one scornes; but theart of coquetry of galant women, the art of pricking, of seducing an honest man, was never for them either the road to his esteem nor his friendship. Friendship, we will say 143 (G): But, you will say, tyrants reassure each other, because the virtues of Brutus are rare. ---Let them not rely on this; for great virtues are only excited by great crimes. If the avenger is not born before or with the guilty party, the child that he meets on his road, and that one takes to baptism, is perhaps the Brutus who will avenge his fatherland

once more, is so different from love, that it is suspect, dishonored, in certain cases, when it replaces it. For example, unhappy lovers, who are ruined, lost in the dreadful labyrinth of the tyrannical passion of love, often enough have recourse to friendship to relieve their torments. The man takes a male friend, the woman a female friend; but, habituated to the tumult of passions, they cannot but bring to the friendship some profane characters of their love; in this estate and in the age of the passions, the extreme friendship contracted between two women or two men is a sort of bastard love, for which one almost does not dare to go more deeply into the mystery.

The strong spirit needs a weak spirit to listen and admire, often without understanding him. Two men of genius esteem each other, without loving each other. Voltaire and Rousseau could not be friends, although they had, in their spirit and in their genius, enough, and not too many connections to be able to form the bonds of friendship between them; but one obstacle secretly disunited them; theywere dominated by the same interest, that of educating men, in order to obtain, in return, their eternal admiration. If,in his misfortunes, Rousseau had accepted the hospitality that Voltaire offered him on various occasions, their friendship would not have been consolidated at all by this rapprochement; on the contrary, in accepting Voltaire’s offer,I would see Rousseau demand, require a solitary cottage in the park at Fernay; I would see the peasants running there in a crowd as if to their equal; I see the travelers, princes or lords who frequented Fernay, fatigued from the series of courts, going to pass delicious hours with the manof nature; and, after several months of his visit, I would hear Voltaire, laughing, politely bidding Rousseau farewell with some witty lines. I do not like the people of the church, monsieur, and you want to make us all hermits, he would have said to him; and Rousseau, prouder of his departure than his arrival at the chateau, would have left with his things in his rucksack andhis walking stick in hand. The gardener of Fernay, his wife and his children, would have wept in seeing him depart thus;

the Paris newspapers would have related the story, and Voltaire would have loved Rousseau even less because of it.

Almost all men have the need to dominate. A very small portion of humanity consents to living under the yoke of domination; and even those will avenge themselves for their submission on some old ladies or some decrepit old men whom they dominate in turn. It seems that the great system of nature is that all that has life dominates and is dominated,either by open force, intelligence, or cunning. Each speciesof animals commands the one that gives in to it through strength our cunning; the necessity of providing for their needs modifies the instincts of the beasts. In spite of their reason, men themselves are susceptible to diverse mores according to the estate that they occupy: a king, always flattered, should be vain and without much education.A minister, subject to the whims of his master, should be a little tyrant vis-à-vis those who implore him, and cruel if they resist him. The people of the church join hypocrisy with pride: hypocrites, because they do not clearly explain the rights of their mission; proud, because they say their mission comes from God. The robe forms the character of the great and of the priests: powerful, because it causes Themis to speak, and proud of this august function. The artist, enveloped in the prestige of his art, lives, so to speak, inan ideal world; entirely devoted to nature, which he unendingly imitates, his desires are of a different sort than those of other men: give them bread, clothing, and promise him immortality, and this is the height of his desires.

Among all these varieties of mores and interests, theseinfinite nuances of amour-propre, this universal struggle ofopinions, desires, of reciprocal strengths and weaknesses, can we imagine that true and disinterested friendship can find a point where it can be fixed? Here is why it is so rare. But just as physicians have subjected all substances to analysis, marking their analogies or their heterogeneities; likewise, in this century, where everything

is calculated mathematically, we can search, and perhaps discover, what are the fitting connections, both physical and moral, which determine among men the intimate sentiment of friendship. This analytical operation will not be more difficult than that of determining the influence of signs on the formation of ideas; and both the former and the latter of these propositions deserve to proposed as a competition by the institute144 ; for we do not flatter ourselves to develop ourproposition sufficiently.

Whether friendship, both in the physical and in the moral, is or is not based on connections of interest – this is what we do not need to examine too closely here. In any case, there is certainly always a power, an interest which commands two things to approach each other, as there is for them to avoid each other. Why does subtle matter rise above heavier matter, which tends to descend? Why does the sun attract humidity? Why do we love that which flatters us? Whydo we fear the blows which wound us?....It is sufficient forus that this should be; our task being to note that which is, and to leave the analysis of the why to the physicist.

CONTINUATION AND CONCLUSION OF THE SAME CHAPTER

After all the aperçus that we have just presented to the reader, it is time for us to summarize. Let us say that there is no real friendship between immoral beings: this is an association of vicious interests. Let us say that the purer beings can associate with each other through the virtues that they have in common, but that their qualities and their defects in character should be different so that there is between them the movement necessary to banish monotony and ennui. ---But, you will say, if their qualities are different, their virtues cannot be the same; humanity not being able to pretend to perfection, it seems proved that all our defects emanate from our proper virtues;that the man who is severe in probity has some coarseness; 144 (G): The first was the subject of a competition as we have said.

that the man who is sweet and peaceful is too indulgent, etc. --- Agreed. But we respond to this argument that peopleof good possessing the same virtues do not at all possess them to the same degree; and that this difference of more orless is sufficient for two friends to have different defective nuances which each of them seeks to correct through the commerce of tender friendship.

So as not to pass through tests as mortifying as they are useless, let us, then, not choose for our friend, 1. Theman whose character has too much or not enough analogy with ours. That two friends be more or less the same age; that their fortunes not be too disproportionate, for we rarely see the rich man love the poor man according to all the rules prescribed by friendship, although the poor may be very disposed to be attached to the rich; finally, that theynot exercise the same estate, but estates sufficiently analogous so that one friend can advise the other without any suspicion of rivalry.

2. In the physical, we must have noted, that two bilious or two sanguine find no point of moral aplomb, and that one of each kind would find considerable. It is uselessto say, the bilious man has all the qualities that bitter melancholy and amour-propre produce; from this stem serious application, sustained desire to succeed, the great virtues and the great vices, according to the direction that education has caused the individual to take. In general, a man who is quite sweet, quite merry, quite amiable, by his character, and not through calculation, rarely does great things. One should raise an altar to bile, one of my friendssaid to me, for all the talents are born from melancholy. – Yes, I said to him; but in order to avoid too much moral acrimony, let us erect a second altar to the emetic.

The sanguine is lively; his anger is not internal like that of the bilious man; he is angered and appeased without rancor. Between these remain the mixed characters for whom it is easy to make an application to our subject, for there are mulattos, quadroons, octoroons for characters as there

are for colors of the skin.145

3. Let us never abuse the intimate connections of friendship; the more delicious the pleasure of two united hearts, the more it must be tempered by momentary and often repeated separations. Let us not tighten the bonds of friendship to the point of making ourselves mutual slaves: there is no beautiful prison; there is no constraint that can last without annoyance. Let a prudent liberty thus be accorded to friendship, so that its rapprochements be more desired. Two friends risk all in too much tightening their knots; and if Machiavelli had thought about it, he would have said: “If you desire to separate two friends, the best meansto confuse the situation is to bind them yet more tightly; if they are joined to the point of not being able to be separated from each other without suffering, their state is against nature, and you have won your case; for there is no perfect equilibrium without deprivation of movement; and deprivation of movement means death. Cause, then, that the two friends that you wish to separate never leave each other, that they are out of each other’s sight as little as possible, that the portrait of one is in the chamber, in thepocket of the other; it is thus that the limited measure of human sentiments will be overwhelmed, that the portion of fidelity that is given to us will be exhausted so much the earlier as each of the two friends works to reduce the part of the other, and that finally satiety will make itself feltin the most united of hearts.” This is what Machiavelli would have said; but as for us, let us say that the controversy of the same principle can serve to prolong the friendship, to prevent it from ever being exhausted, to enjoy through our life long a union that is the sweetest, the most respectable, and, of all the gifts of heaven, the most precious to mortals. In this regard, one could say of friends, that which one says of two lovers: that they are never so close to separating as when their passion is

145 (G): See the chapter on the influence of the physical on the moral with regard to man. Essays on music, volume 3.

extreme. What is it that separated you, we ask them? --- itis a tangle, an obstinacy, bad faith on his part, a quarrel based no nothing….. — 146. You are deceiving yourselves, young starlings who only do only one thing, and ignore all the rest; it is your sated passion that demands a respite. Jealousy itself is often no more than the fear that we go elsewhere to seek that which we can longer give.

All that we have said up until this point on the subject of friendship only deals with that which takes placebetween men; for that which reigns between a man and a woman, or between two women, presents nuances of which we have not made mention; it is with these differences that we will conclude this chapter.

I often hearing boasting about the charms of the friendships created between two persons of different sexes; nothing, they say, is equal to the cares of man for woman, if not those of the girlfriend toward her boyfriend, which yet surpass them. I would believe that two individuals thus assembled mutually misunderstand their true sentiments, although their happiness is real. In reflecting well about this intimacy, where every word produces a sensation, where each little renewed care is a delight, who can fail to recognize love? It is truly in analyzing this friendship that one must say with Bernard:

Et tu serois la volupté,Si l’homme avoit ton innocence147.

But we are far from being innocent, and nature does not careabout our innocence when are are mature enough for its intentions. She deceives us then, because she wants two to produce a third everywhere that sexual connections take place. If among girlfriend and boyfriend, the ages are

146 (G): Note how often one says things when one does not know what to say: it is the same for everything. 147 TN: And you would be voluptuousness, if man had your innocence. Final couplet of the Hymne à l’Amitié by Pierre-Joseph Bernard, 1708-1774.

disproportionate, beware that one of the two is not truly amorous elsewhere, and that friendship here is not only the protectoress of love! But if, after having been two inseparable lovers in the prime of age, friendship comes to follow upon love in advanced age; then, this friendship is pure, although it retains a tinge of amorous voluptuousness.We have, these lover-friends can say, expended our assets together, no one is tempted to render it to us, let us love each other, as much as we can, as if we were only twenty years old; and let the weakness of our present faculties be embellished by the precious reminiscences of the past; reminiscences not distant, and, so to speak, present, since they were never interrupted by the ices of indifference. But, dear friend, the man will say, let us avoid the regardsof young lovers too jealous of their rights; for us the wings of love have been transformed into crutches, let us not give reason for these frisky youths to laugh, and let usprudently conceal our superannuated sighs.

The friendship between two women is, ordinarily, a commerce of dissimulation. In the most beautiful mouth, ma bonne amie [my good friend] means, most often, you, who are good enough to recognize that you are my inferior in beauty,spirit, and to give in to me in everything. If love takes charge of the heart of one of the two friends, the other cannot bear being used as a confidant without spite, and in the hope that soon the same good offices will be rendered toher. La partié est-elle carrée, then the friendship is no more thana vain title, it is an exchange of services favoring love. If one of our beauties is abandoned, or if she abandons her perfidious lover, the job of confidant becomes even more insupportable for her; her less flowery complexion, her beautiful and downcast eyes, give her the appearance of a young widow awaiting the second favors of hymen; her estate humiliates her, ages her by ten years in the eyes of the still amorous couple, and in her own eyes, although the two girlfriends are the same age.

Friendship between men is contracted more easily than

between women. The former put more openness and less subtlety in their moral proceedings, and allow themselves tobe understood more easily. Mistrust among women is excessive, on the contrary; the subtlety of their estate distances them from spontaneous and sincere effusions. A woman of spirit could only tell us what a woman is, and whatthe quickness of her penetration is. The blink of a pretty woman, entering an assembly, is as quick as a flash; in a moment she has seen everything, she knows everything that isgoing on; she has distinguished all the nuances of the outfits and physiognomies before having finished her three bows. Two pretty women cannot remain stopped for a moment, without a malign smile betraying them, and this smile, almost imperceptible, means: I know you, beautiful mask. They quite resemble monks and priests, who formerly could not look at each other without laughing, and who today cannot see each other without pain and humiliation.

Although women, given their natural weakness, have a great need to create links and cabals among themselves, their union as friends, I say, is more difficult to contractthan among men, because the time of pretentions to beauty is, among them, very prolonged, and, at any age, for men this pretention is almost null in comparison.

For the rest, for both sexes, true friendship is a sentiment so pure in its essence, that it is destroyed by the poisoned breath of all the mundane passions. It is almost null in the hearts where love, jealousy, coquetry reign……it is profaned and null in the hearts where the vices, the cruel, sordid, hateful and sad passions reign; itshines with all its brightness, when it accompanies the virtues, the respectable sentiments, such as piety, probity,the constant love of the truth. Friendship is thus the reward of the good, as indifference and hate are the punishment of the wicked. In a word, abject hearts do not know friendship at all: it has for its sanctuary only virtuous hearts.

Nature seems to have said to former and latter: you aregood, you will love, and you will be loved. You are wicked, you will not love, and you will be detested.

After having spoken of this delicious sentiment that heaven has given to men to increase their pleasures and console them for their pains, we must still speak of this passion, so sweet and so baleful, that necessarily has such an influence on mores.

NOTE FOR THE FIFTEENTH CHAPTER.

(1) I have often said to young composers who have trouble informing a discourse in instrumental music: “The less you make perfect chords in the current of your piece, the more facility you will have in pursuing your object. Perfect chords are final points after which one always needs a new idea having connections that that which preceded it. And themore ideas there are in a piece of music or in a spoken discourse, the more difficult it is to preserve unity in thewhole.”

Chap. 16 On the influence of love on mores.

1. Love being the dominant passion man, it should, from thisperspective, have the leading influence on mores. Ibid.

2. On the Societies established by Love3. The ancients defined love well

4. On the Samnites.5. Among the Gauls.

6. Love is the support of man in slavery, and in general ofthe unhappy man.

7. The greatest woes arise from misdirected love.8. The excesses of the man of the people harm future

generations.9. These excesses will be reformed by more widespread

education of women.10. Man at every age protected by Love.

11. From his birth.12. The adolescent also protected by Love.13. How it is necessary to favor marriages.

14. On the regime of the spouses.15. Necessity of divorce.

16. Man protected by Love into his old age.

§. I.Love being the dominant passion in man, it should, from this perspective, have

the leading influence on mores.

The sweetest, most consoling, but the most terrible of the passions, that which nature uses to command man to reproduce; that which, from his youngest years until his oldage, whether he desires, enjoys, or regrets, consumes his life in one long sigh; that from which arise almost all the movements of the soul, love, finally, must necessarily be the most important regulator of mores. Pythagoras said: giveme movement, and I will create the universe once more. This

was to say: let them make me God, I will animate nature. This uselessly desired movement for a physical procreation is in our power for directing mores; it is the fire of love that attracts or repeals, which is independent of the will of man; here is the true principle and motive of our actions; it is through it, for it that nothing costs man; more child than the child who masters him, it is through love that he will easily let himself be led to happiness.

When we seek out the favor of the powerful man, we choose the favorable moment to approach him: likewise, the man who loves has nothing to refuse to the laws, if they favor his most imperious penchant. Let us make it pure, favorable to mores, and let us obtain everything from man through passion which dominates him. It is too vehement to be hidden: the loving man is always true with regard to his passion, and sincerity, even in the wrong things, is the base of good mores. If we do not consult nature, in vain will our politics create governments; the republic of Cythère is more ancient than human las; it dates from after the life of the first man, and will not end until the death of the last one. Solon, Montesquieu, Machiavelli, you would sigh for this mother fatherland, while composing the immortal l code of laws!

The goal of this work is to connect everything to moraltruth, that is to say, that which honest men have agreed to respect in order to be able to live in society. There we arefar from nature, I agree, but we cannot, without crime, approach it too closely, once divisions have been made, and everything belongs to someone. Today, in order to absolutelymove back toward nature, one would need to move away from man, seek a deserted land where one could say: here everythingbelongs to me; everything is mine alone. But love is opposed to this absolute isolation: man wants a companion, woman seeks a support in man, hymen everywhere follows amorous courting, and soon society begins all over again.

§. II.

On Societies established through Love

I imagine then, that since God wants love to reunite the sexes, and that societies arise from their reunion, it falls to love to purify their mores. In its procedures, lovealways has several ends that correspond to each other; its great secret is to make everything usefully, and nothing uselessly. Love establishes society with regard to all its connections; it is thus through its force that one can make oneself master of the morality of man. It is necessary for him to be conducted to goo by the thing that he loves the most, just as he is always punished where he has sinned, that is to say, through is excesses. Finally, whether, in our feeble intelligence, we often confuse causes with effects, or we take as cause something which is only the effect of a cause which is unknown to us, it is remarkable, in the physical as in the moral, that the remedy is almost always nearby the ill. The lightning explodes and burns us, but it determines the torrents which moderate the excess of its fires. Love is sometimes as impetuous as lightning, but from its transports themselves is born the calm which follows it. In considering love in general, we note that long before her early adolescence, the little girl reveals to us her penchant for love; it is in order to please that she is constantly occupied with her appearance; and moving from hertoilette to that of her doll, she changes object without changing her idea. The innate sentiment of love develops later in man; the principal generator, he needs a longer maturity which seems to pique the little girl, if we observethe constant allurements which she addresses to him in orderto make him come out of his childish lethargy. Powerful resource of nature! which makes active the being who will become passive as soon as her blows have opened the wound inthe heart of the adolescent man. At every age love is a war between the two sexes: if one talks much, the other is mute;if one retreats, the other advances; if one saves himself,

the other pursues; always, the activity of one moderates that of the other. Nature must act thus, since a double delirium would deprive the contracting parties of the presence of spirit needed to combine the means of attack anddefense. It is only at the end of the combat, in arriving ata mutual peace, that cunning ends on both side, and the wills are blended.

We know this: little boys, thoughtlessly occupied with their merry games, are initiated by little girls who are notat all put off by their foolish indifference. Eve tempts thefirst man; little girls follow the example of their first mother, and all seem to have guessed the story of the forbidden fruit.

If, since the first day of the association of man and

woman, one had said to this first human couple: Increase andmultiply, the lie, under the form of the serpent, would not have come to corrupt them. It is thus combatting the lie atits source for me to show, if possible, love as restorer of mores, to the extent that it was, that it still is the corruptor. — Let us fear, some pedants of the old school will say, unveiling before the eyes of youth secrets which should remain hidden from it. — Let us fear, rather, in wanting pointlessly to make youth change an innate sentiment, that it experiences, that it feelts, which develops with age, to make imbecils and dupes, or intelligent hypocrites; and for all the rest, eternally factitious women and men (1). — But innocence must be preserved, respected. — Does it need your care, your respect? Contemplate it, admire it, do not corrupt it with fables. Fear that the sentiment of love, only suspected by ayoung heart, should reject through instinct your lying efforts. Let it seek out the fruit that it vaguely desires, do not expose it to his glances, but do not tell him that itis bad, unless you want him to taste it and find it to be good. When I see a governess strike a little girl because she moves her hand towards her future charms, I say: she had

no idea, but now she knows something. — Must one let her do it? — No; give her a hard candy; her hand will change direction. One pleasure can compensate for another – never can pain replace pleasure.

The excesses of love have, everywhere, given rise to laws that repress them; I would like, on the contrary, that love, well-analyzed by the legislator, well-directed in advance according to its principle, become the principal basis of the primitive laws of every society. It is better certainly to prevent ill from being done, than to be obligedto punish it after it has been committed. Good laws preventevil; such were almost all those of Lycurgus. Poorly appliedlaws do not correct at all; they kill the guilty, they habituate man to the apparatus of torture; crime remains unpunished when punishment ceases to be dreaded. If Robespierre had continued his human massacres for another fifteen days, French youth, innocent or guilty, would have sung while going to the scaffold.148

When a principle has not been conceived, or when one has not dared to develop it entirely, then penal laws punishthe lack of preventative laws. An old code of laws resemblesthe Vatican: complicated everywhere, it is the work of many centuries, of every hand, of every circumstance; it is a colossus which is only astonishing because of its shapeless mass.

Women, at all ages, have been the apostles of love: their dominion is a seduction which man has so much need of that he is enchained long before he suspects it. The Circes and the Armides belong to every climate. While Hercules was

148 (G): During the period of the terror, chance had it that I met a tumbrel in the rue S. Honoré, opposite that of the Loi. This tumbrel was full of people from the Vendée, very well placed folk; a young lady of about fifteen to eighteen rose, looked around with admiration, and said: Oh, what a fine street! She had, I said to myself, wanted to see Paris her whole life long, she was seeing it for the first time, and in order to die there on a scaffold…. I would have given my life in order to save hers.

knitting at the feet of Omphale, the swarthy Lapp made his den resound with amorous sighs.

§. III.

The ancients had defined love well.

The Greeks and Romans had, it seems to me, well-definedlove, omnipotent with respect to mores. Modesty was for themthe apanage of women; but if they demanded that the wife be entirely for her husband, and that his pride arise from her fidelity, in order to preserve the sacred love of hymen, they gave great latitude to the free favorites of Venus. Thephilosopher, the priest, the magistrate did not conceal themselves at all in order to go to Lais and Aspasia: inspire the virtues, love of the fatherland in this young people which adores you, they said; thus the love that one has for you, and which one cannot entirely repress, will be of use to the society.

§. IV.On the Samnites.

Among the Samnites, love was the reward for bravery; the head of a Roman hero was, so to speak, a bill of exchange for which the Samnite beauty had to pay the value with the gift of her person.

§. V.

Among the Gauls

In the times of our gallant knights, love was also the moving force of mores: women saved them from the barbarity that coarse amour-propre is capable of. These fair ladies had the art of spinning out the perfect love of their preux chevaliers over ten years; they made them brave, charitable,redressers of wrongs, finally, as virtuous as one could be in a time of ignorance and feudality, when the rights of monks and suzerains were substituted for those crushed underthe iron of despotism.

§. VI.Love is the support of man in slavery, and in general of the unhappy man.

One can observe, in general, that love is the more active to the extent that

man is devoted to slavery. Everywhere where he is enslaved, or only wretched, the quantity of his children proves that the sweetness of love recompensed him, as much as possible, for the loss of his liberty and ease of life. In no place did love have more dominion than among the knights of the round table, where the most absolute despotism reigned. Among the Turks, the intrigues in the seraglio decided the fate of the empire.

On the contrary, among the strict Lacedemonians where liberty reigned, love, in some way, was profaned. Love is reduced to the physical among men who are warriors and valorous out of necessity, such as the Spartans. Amorous poetics are so far from their acid mores, that they disdain them and reject them.

Among the good Quaker, love languished without worship:its altar is the conscience of these respectable men. It seems, then, that nature reserved love to be the consoler ofthe unhappy man; it is love which seeks unceasingly to give to oppressed man his natural liberty, through increasing thenumber of avengers with that of individuals; after which, if

he succeeds in escaping his distress, he devotes himself to more repose. Ask whether, mutatis mutandis, given the requisitions of soldiers by the fatherland, given the emigration of the nobles, the population has not been in France more abundant than one would have imagined possible in the times of the revolution and the terror. Ask the young people who escaped from the prisons of Robespierre, ifwomen, decent until this period, were not weaker, more insouciant regarding their virtue, being in the prisons where only delirium made them live. I know that the common opinion of economists is the man at ease is more fecund in his progeniture. Is this not perhaps because children have something to live on at the house of the well-off man, and they die of misery and lack of car at that of the poor man? For the rest, it would be easy to verify this calculation: in waiting, I think that the freer man has fewer children than the slave, if he is lacking neither in women, nor food;that the wealthy man has fewer than in poverty; that the manenjoying honest ease has fewer still than the poor man, but that after a certain time he retains more of them: which proves always that honest ease is the estate that is the most favorable to the propagation of the species.

§. VII

The greatest woes are born from misdirected love.

Badly-directed love is also the source of almost all our maladies, or of the vices which give these to us. Exceptfor hereditary ills, which perhaps have the same source, tuberculosis, this terrible scourge which mows down a fifth of youth, comes, in general, from disorder of the senses andfrom clandestine revolts. We require of young people a modesty, an absolute decency, and death becomes the inheritance which are chaste in appearance. If the chest resists, nervous disorders torment the individual, and render him perplexed until the age of thirty. Almost all maladies, in an age where sources of too abundant life

should alone discommode the individual, early senility, lackof gaiety, of spirit, of genius, imbecility, madness itself,have, most often, only this same cause. However, the individual who is poorly prepared, exhausted in advance, is null during his mature age; aftger which the accumulated maladies, are only the last exhaustions of health which the excesses of love in preceding ages have not destroyed.

§. VIII

The excesses of the man of the people harm future generations.

Among the working people, these ills are little known; but its brutality is extreme, and it is love which softens it. In his somber humor, the ignorant man of the people doesnot even know how to spare that which he loves, and from which he is unable to be separated for a few days without alarm; nevertheless, that which inspires love in him is always his first victim. One of the most frightful pictures that one can see is the atrocious despotism exercised by themen of a certain class of the people over their wives and their children. Grumbling, striking when they arise, gettingdrunk in the evening at the cabaret, only going out in orderto come back and exterminate his household which he scandalizes with the most terrible oaths. This is what the man of the people makes his wife suffer. If he is out of work, and in need, the blows are distributed without reason to left and right. If he is very busy, well-paid, if he enjoys the fruit of his salary, my man drinks, plays at being educated, argues, and shouts at everyone that contradicts him. Here is the frightful example that one gives to the children, who would have done like their fathers, had public education not come to their aid. Man’s brutality expires, I know, as soon as the children have left, or rather, escaped; the caresses of his marriage then come to dry the tears that his despotism has caused to be shed; it is, as the proverb goes, the peace of the household; but what a hideous preparation for the sacrifice

the woman is obliged to make at every close of the day; whata stupid, brutal and barbarous generation is prepared for usby violent men who, passing from one excess to another, seemlike escapees from hell who demand asylum in the heavens. Wemust suspect that nature demands from man what which it constantly shows us in the animals, who, after being invitedby caresses, take refuge in the corner of a wood, in a peaceable hut, in order to obey the eternal order. The seed of the flowers of the vegetables announces the fructification or the perishing of the stem which should open. If man reflected, if he respected his future generation, if he knew, finally, that for him, as for the plants, it is past and present which prepare the happy future, he would tremble with horror even within his pleasure, in the fear of giving rise to unnatural monsters, children of drunkenness, anger, lying, who would only be fitfor violating the laws in order to give themselves over to debauchery and every excess.

People of the beau monde, you think that this picture is exaggerated; but if you knew the lower classes, you wouldsee that I do not go far enough. Yes, I repeat: love excitedby debauchery and immoralities must only produce vicious andlying beings; but love, the result and final end of happiness, must engender men who are good and sociable. The supreme art of the legislator is, as we have said, to prevent evil from arising, rather than to repress it when itis already overwhelming society.

§. -IX.

These excesses will be reformed by the more general education of women.

For the rest, in their turn women are being and will bemore and more educated. They are today, with regard to instruction, that which men of the previous century commonlywere. What will come from the more general education of women? A moral revolution, which is not difficult to

foresee. Ours was that of revolted amour-propre; theirs willbe that of loved outraged in the first objects of its worship. I know that in a revolution, it is strength which does everything, and that women are lacking in energy; but if physical forces are not in their domain, they have moral force available; they will be able to make us act for them; they will do as the philosophers, who, after having communicated instruction to us, stood aside in our politicalrevolution, while the people battled: just like the doctor who, after having prescribed the medicine, goes away, and returns some later to consider its effects. Women, when generally educated, will expected to be directed by reason, and not by brutality. Already the abolition of nunneries andthe ease of obtaining divorce have destroyed a portion of their torments.

§. X.

Man at every age protected by Love

Respecting social laws, never going beyond the limits that they have marked out, taking in everything nature as guide – it is thus that one perfects moral procedures. Nature has only one sublime agent like the sun, whose influence is felt by all the productions of the earth. Likewise, a single agent would direct the grand morality of man, if the central and innate fire of love were wisely directed by legislators. In order to lead him to good, this agent alone would be sufficient from Man’s birth to his death. It is which remains for us to prove, in order to complete the task which we have taken on in this chapter.

§.XI.

From his birth.

Is man from his birth protected by love? The question is so simple that it is almost useless to answer it. Yes, all maternal cares are so many reactions of love. A mother, in her child, does not cease to see the spouse whom she loves. This is the charming mirror in which she contemplatesher first loves, the solemn day of her wedding; it recalls to her the most secret movements of her heart; after having smiled at him, she still deigns to blush while looking at her innocent ravisher, or at least the dear object of the virtuous sacrifice that the made of her virginal purity. Then amorous tears come to lave this fruit of her tenderness, and further purify, if possible, the sacred bonds of marriage.

$. XII

The adolescent likewise protected by love

Adolescence is the most precious period of man’s life; it is at this instant that love will lead him to virtues, orcause him to wither forever. But it is only for the peoples sanctified by equality that I can address myself at present,in showing them the infallible resources of love. The peoples oppressed by puerile distinctions of rights of birthmust no longer be listening to me.

I will say freely, or I would say to the tender father of the young man who still concentrates in his heart the indecisive flame of love, or who has made a choice that he dares not admit: See, my son, this people of young beauties,who all have the desire, and who through the modesty which restrains them, but which reveals them, aspire to the happiness of pleasing you! From this moment on, seek out andchoose for yourself the charming spouse who should be the companion of your best days. If you find her, tell her: You

are as welcome as the flower of the month of May. ---Ah, my father, I have found her, she alone shares with you my tenderness. But alas! Tears darken my eyes when I see her. She is rich, high in rank, and I am poor, and of a rank…--- My son! You have been born among a free people where all areequal in rights. Your secret tears will not give you the treasure to which you aspire – you need courage. She will beyour wife, if your heart is free, or she is unworthy of you;then you will easily renounce her possession. --- What are you saying, my father! Can I believe in your promises? ---Yes; but are you ready to do everything in order to deserve her? --- Yes, everything, I can do everything. ---Listen tome. She is rich, you say; the rank of her father is distinguished. ---He is one of our leading magistrates: sucha one is her father…. ----I want himself to show you to his daughter as the young man who is the most worthy of being her spouse; I want he himself to place love in flaming characters in the heart of his daughter; I want, finally, from the first day that she sees you, for the sighs of an innocent love to be exhaled from her timid heart. Listen to me. ---Ah! My father, I am listening to you! And I am already ravished with happiness. --- You will go starting tomorrow to the public schools: you are intelligent, you will profitably learn what they are teaching you there, withthe idea of pleasing the woman who is dear to you. --- Yes, my father, I will make quick progress, I assure you. ---Thisis still not enough. I took you last year to the crowning ofthe most true child; did you see him discern the prize for truth? --- Yes, and I weep when I recall this august ceremony. How amiable and interesting was this young man! ---Well, it is you who will, in one year, be likewise crowned by the father of your mistress, and I promise you that she will be present at your triumph; you will cause herto shed tears of piety, of tenderness, and the next day I will take you to her to thank her for having attended your crowning. ---Ah! My father, what are you telling me! Good God, will it be possible! … Certainly. And the most truthfulchild, the most virtuous, does he not become the most accomplished young man? The leading places in the Republic,

where he is already worthy through his virtue, are they not for him, if he acquires the talents needed to fill them? Sheis your wife, I tell you: on the day when you speak to her for the first time, when you, with respect, kiss the hand ofher father who has just crowned you, when you kiss the handsof his daughter who gives you a thousand innocent caresses, you will tell her: The virtues that your father has deigned to reward in me, in the name of the fatherland, are not my work alone; I wished to begin to make myself worthy of a heart which already makes my own burn with the most respectful love. I have done nothing yet to deserve the heart to which I aspire, it is today when my efforts will begin; all will be easy for me if I can deserve it; virtues,talents, I will try everything, encouraged by my first successes; either I will be worthy of it, or I will die of sorrow. ---Her father will not fail to question me separately about this discourse. I will tell him everything;that it is his daughter who has led you to the path of virtue, that she will lead you, certainly, to that of honorsand fortune…. I will share his answer with you. I dare to think that his daughter will approve of your vows, and that her father will allow her to see you sometimes. No, he will not want, be sure of it, to extinguish such a beautiful fire, made to honor his daughter and himself, as much as we ourselves.

What means of emulation is comparable to this in order to inflame a young heart already burning with love? To lead him to talents through virtues, and from virtues and talentsto happiness?149 In bring together the child without fortune, and one of the leading magistrates, I let us imagine how closer choices become easier. No, there is no

149 (G): This reminds me of a passage that one finds in the memoires of Brantôme. A well-born girl had a lover who was extremely talkative; in order to correct him from this fault, which covered him with ridicule, she forbade him tospeak. The young man suddenly became absolutely mute. A long time thereafter, ina company where everyone was astonished by this unhappiness, for which no one suspected the cause, the young woman who was present boasted that she could restore his speech, and did so with this single word, speak.

amorous young man, and they all are amorous, who one cannot thus inflame with his own fire, in directing him towards allthe fine human qualities which he will not fail to acquire. Oh! I remember well what I promised myself in order to reward myself during the course of my studies! My mother waspoor, it was for her that I wished to enrich myself through my talents, which unfailingly led to fortune or at least to honest ease. Some beauty, often imaginary, excited my emulation; when I did some good thing, when I found some passage of sensitive melody, she will like that, I said to myself, she will weep with tenderness in hearing this passage. It is thus that I was animated by the desire to perfect more and more my feeble productions.

XIII.

How it is necessary to favor marriages.

I have just shown how useful love that is arising and well-directed can be to mores, for I do not doubt that the unions contracted under the auspices of virtue are happy. But not all marriages begin in this way; a thousand chances decide them, or to put it in a better way, all is luck for youth that seeks each other out and which continually is moving to the same goal. A ball has been enough to settle a marriage. There, a voluptuous and rhythmic music agitates youth, and makes it sweat. There, everyone breathes the emanations that they love, in a lively atmosphere combined with all the perfumes of the Orient. Oh! One must have little knowledge of the human heart to not be able to see the happy melancholy that fills youth that is leaving a ball! Rich old man, you who are seeking a reason to live, breathe this vital air that delirious youth has dispensed out of need; what it has to excess is lacking for you; from its overflow you can still restore your many years, and add some days of life to your existence, which is ready to be extinguished.

But the union between the two sexes has quite differentconsequences. The young man wants to be happy through the jouissances of love, the young woman can only be happy through marriage, and the parents of both only see happinessfor their children in the marriages which they call well-matched, where one finds equality of wealth and of rank. I have said somewhere that laws cannot grant too much dominionto parents with respect to their children, whom they love; but I would except the present case, where cold age is little able to sympathize with the violent impulses of love.Under the ancien régime, parents had more reason to be strict;in France, as in many other countries, marriages were reallyfrightening, because divorce was almost impossible to obtain. A marriage announcement that one received from friends was then almost as bad news as a announcement of a burial; one said to oneself: here are two that are happy fora few months, who will pay very dearly for their passing happiness. But today, when a happy divorce can easily, and without scandal, untie the imprudent bonds of love and hymen, I would like for youth who wish to marry to have a respectful recourse to their parents, who are often too obstinate; I would like a marriage tribunal to invite them to appear before them in order to smooth out the difficulties that they too often put in the way of the unionof their children, because they are not equal in wealth. Theobstacle almost always comes from a rich man, of a mature age, who offers to marry the young woman who prefers a youngman with no fortune. If the old pretender found himself a single time before the judges, he would blush at his folly, and would no longer think of anything but caring for his asthma, his gout, or his rheumatism. Certainly titles of nobility will no longer be presented as obstacles; but money, always money! It is then that the tribunal would be of great assistance to youth; its voice would be that of God, which would interpose its holy authority between fatherand son, between mother and daughter. The tribunal would promise the young man, according to his ability, to find himsome position, I would like the recommendation of the tribunal of marriage to be well-received, and even

respected, by the government. Then, instead of granting positions to the celibate, true wasps of the honey of marriage, spouses would be rewarded by the State, which owesthem support and protection.

XIV.

On the Régime of Spouses.

If only we could often see unions protected by love andby virtue! If only we could see spouses happy for a long time in the sweet chains of love! But in the holiest of unions, it is still necessary to entertain the holy fire of hymen; its flame, just like that of love, is extinguished ifone neglects to nourish the purity of its flame. A regime thus is needed by spouses after the law comes to sanctify their most intimate union, or else the fever itself of happiness will consume them; the liveliest fire of love willsoon offer them only the ices of indifference. Man! Respect,then, the modesty of she who wishes to prolong your desires:one withers the rose by breathing its perfumes from too close: likewise, one destroys pleasure by immodest jouissance. Distance yourself from the temple of your loves before lassitude and slumber seize you; it is in order to propagate existence that this temple is erected, it is to the flames of love that it is destined, and Morpheus profanes it through his stupid annihilation. Absolute repose, the ease of solitude are necessary after the labors of love; nothing is more harmful to permitted pleasures thana factitious continuity of blunted desires. Leave to lovers threatened at every moment by a painful separation amorous thefts and excesses; one can risk losing a fragile good which is fleeing us, but the assured happiness of an entire life should be managed with more care than the gold with which you have just been endowed. One may here recommend to spouses that which Ovid requires of lovers. Let discreet veils prevent Phoebus from penetrating your asyla too freely;it has been said to you:

On ne doit fêter l'amourQu'accompagné du mystère150.

Woman! carefully avoid everything that decency condemnsand that the senses reprove. The proud, senseless man seems to want to assure himself that the woman that he worships isonly a mortal: he wishes to destroy his error which makes him too happy ; resist him, you, accompanied by modesty ; fear that his deceived imagination should debase you with the same excess that it had elevated you. In your situation,as in many others, the phantoms of the imagination, once dissipated, are harmful to reality.

Young spouses, listen well to the advice that I am giving you. If only I could hide the page which contains it from all others but yourselves; Ovid and Bernard would also have given it to lovers, if it had not escaped their galant imagination to pay homage to virtue.

The man who is insatiable in pleasure wants to entirelypossess the object that hymen subjects to him; however, whenhe will have traveled through his domain, when he has assured himself of the existence of a thousand charms, his satisfied curiosity will chill his desires. Keep in reserve,then, one of your most innocent charms which he is not permitted to approach; pretend, if necessary, in order to preserve his delirium and his love, that the most invincibleantipathy, the most unbearable annoyance force you to opposehis desires. He will more easily believe you, since the moreintimate favors what you grant seem to authorize him to regard this as a little favor that you are depriving him of;but I know the heart of man; impatient to possess everything, irritated by the tiniest privation, just one of your arms, of your knees that he cannot, to the limit of hiswhims, devore with kisses, this reticence, more moral than physical, will be sufficient to kindle his fire and prolong

150TN: One should only celebrate love when accompanied by mystery (G: The song says “cherish love”. )

his fidelity for a long time151 What! The first of goods, which laws supervise because it is too lively, too general, is given to you for life, and you will only enjoy it for a moment! Young spouses, believe me, your existence is so worthy of envy, your happiness is so perfect, so complete, that you should fear at every instant to diminish it throughyour imprudences. The gods, jealous of the delights of your more than human situation, seem to excite you to enjoy without reserve in order to hasten its cessation. Deceive the gods who press you to taste more happiness than you can bear. Retain the indiscreet pleasure which, like the butterfly of the night, is consumed in the flame where he only wanted to dry his wings. Manage the treasure that nature and the laws entrust to you; you can be happy throughit for three quarters of your life, and three days of imprudence can take from you an inappreciable happiness, which one never rediscovers after it is lost.

XV.

Necessity of divorce.

Nevertheless, the inconstancy of man is such, that often he cannot be fixed even by happiness. If virtue, moderation are not his guides; then love, hymen, fortune, are no longer sufficient to his unregulated desires. He languishes today in the bosom of the same enjoyments which, even yesterday, gave him felicity. Through our exhortations will we force, in general, the inexperienced man to be moderate? No, he wishes to abuse, to perishes in excesses. Asmall number of men are saved from the midst of the storms in order to take shelter in port; it is only there that they151 (G): In one of the following chapters, we will try to show that deception, which is proscribed everywhere in this work, is permitted when it produces a real good; that it is of the essence of love; that it is indestructible in the fine arts; finally, that it accompanies the instinct of all the animals devoted to simple nature.

invoke wisdom. Philosophy teaches us that the moral inconstancy of man is only a natural result of his physical mobility. Devoured each day by the weather, by the stars which breathe his substance; restored by foreign foods that he incorporates into himself; receiving on one side that which he loses on the other; marching unendingly toward maturity or decrepitude, he is never the same in the physical except through the sensation of his awareness that tells him that he has not ceased to be; he is never the samein the moral, except through his egotism which only abandonshim in the tomb. Since man through his nature is necessarilyinconstant, since he lives for himself, sacrifices everything to himself, is only attached to others inasmuch as the interests of his dear person advise him that there, one earns double of what one borrows: how unhappy was he in contracting the indissoluble bonds of marriage! In France, and in some other places, divorce came to break his chain, but this salutary law should be general for all peoples – the happiness of humanity demands it; this is why we are going into some details here, and it is to the men who have not yet adopted our laws on divorce, that we are addressing them. I am far from being a partisan of divorce; I indeed feel, with all upright men, that a blot remains on the aureole of those, and especially on those women who, enjoying the purest reputation, have had the best reasons for separating in order to form other bonds. I would like one not to be able to form a demand for separation before the spouses, accompanied by their children, had appeared at the family tribunal, from whence we have projected the holy institution; that there, they would hear behind closed doorsthe paternal voice of a judge who would exhort them to strengthen their knots ready to be broken. But I am not lesspersuaded, I do not less feel the necessity for divorce; andthat in every country where it is impractical or too difficult to obtain one finds odious lying in all its most perfidious forms; there one finds the infernal visit decked with the garlands of marriage.

No, there is no happiness for man, if he is not free todissolve while his senses are calm the eternal bonds that his passion caused him to contract. The woes caused by the indissoluble bonds of marriage are incalculable; it seems that it in this case alone the laws have desired to set a trap for mortals so that they should be forever unhappy. Do we not know under how many mysterious veils an individual conceals from the other all that which could mar him? Beforemarriage, religion, decency condemn lack of modesty; but scarcely has one formed indissoluble bonds, that we do not find each other the same; vices, physical and moral defects,then come in crowds to efface the chimeras of the imagination, and it is thus then that the law seems to say: I knew your illusions, thousands of victims before you had attested to them; but you swore an oath, be forever unhappy, or perjure yourself. The attraction of greater pleasures, the happiness of seeing oneself reborn, would make the honest man tremble, if he dared to reflect on the dangers of an eternal oath. What, childhood, old age obtain the indulgence of the laws! And in the singlecase of marriage, a man drunk with a terrible, irresistible passion, which makes him weaker than a child, will obtain none?! How has the law been able to play thus with human weakness and the trouble of our senses! --- It is not only in marriage, you will say, that one is made to keep one’s promises; except for the state of mania, childhood, and extreme old age, all contracts are valid. ----Yes, let them be so, I consent to this, these contracts are of no importance. What does it matter, really, that Peter made a bad deal in favor of Paul! What does the law care that you should dissipate your fortune in bad deals! Your cupidity punished through your imprudence become justice. But at least let man have one consolation; that the union of hearts, the calm of the soul, domestic happiness, should indemnify him for his losses and his follies; let us not crush him at the only place where he can be recompensed for his errors. ---But, you will further say, there are seriouscases where divorce is easy to obtain. ---I do not know of any, not even that where the two parties desire a

separation: for, if one of the two has more reasons, more interest, if this party was first to show the desire to separate, the other is opposed in order to be contrary, and to make the former fail in his project. Ask those who have obtained their separation, whether of body, or of goods, whether both, if they did not spend an infinite time in the torment of uncertainty before managing it. Here is a part ofthe obstacles which prevent them and which all are harmful to public happiness: I say public, since spouses are everywhere the greatest part of society. The ill is often hidden, this is true; but we are no longer in the time wherewe contented ourselves with an apparent happiness, we need areal happiness.

At first the shame of having chosen badly, of having let oneself be deceived, of avowing that one detests today the being that one had loved the most, holds back more than half of unhappy spouses. Then come the parents who encourage them to be patient. The shame of a being duped will make the man who has borne everything say: And do I now need to pay alimony to the woman who has made me unhappy, who has dishonored me? If the woman is the richer of the two, will she leave almost all her fortune to her brutal spouse? Her children, who are dearer to her than her life, from whom shewill need, perhaps, to be separated, even if only for a month and for judicial reasons – this alone makes her motherly heart tremble. She will suffer, languish, will holdthese little innocents to her skeletal chest, and will not ask for the separation that she perhaps will obtain at the end. ---So much the better, you will say, that such a powerful bond should hold spouses together. Together! They are not united at all, or it is only with the chains of hell. Soon you will see this woman who has suffered so much through love for her children, for her parents, through decorum, you will see her, I say, arrive at the period when her life is in danger; then she will perish for the price ofher virtue.

This man, who thinks that he has married an angel who scarcely dares lift her eyes to look at him, finds, at the end of a year of marriage, a serpent whose every bend is infected with malice, with lies, and with coquetry, if not worse. Occupied with a thousand matters which need his attention, he knows that he is deceived and has proof of nothing. He never comes home, he never leaves home without sighing; if he hugs his children, he fears that he is holding in his arms the child of another father, that of theman whom he knows, that he rightly suspects, whose throat hewould like to cut. Man, whoever you are, you will never go beyond the limits of nature, without being prey to a thousand ills. Nature wants to you love the woman who seems amiable to you at present; society demands that your voluptuous penchants be subject to the laws of good order: but, believe me, do not swear; let your speech, especially in love, be capable of being broken, since you only have thestrength to perjure yourself; you promise, as if your being were stable; and your tastes, your desires, your passions, belong no more to you than does your life. Unhappy one! In leaving the altar where you have just sworn to be faithful, the lightest zephyr, in blowing aside the veil which covers the breast of another beauty whom you are seeing for the first time, already makes your heart perjure itself. It thusfalls to the laws to parry the inconsequences of a voluptuous and feeble man; it is for the laws to free him from his indiscreet vows of marriage. Do we not see through how many disorders nature takes vengeance on laws which are too rigorous on this point? Do we not see this unbridled libertinage which attests at every step the violation of thelaws? Do we not see this abominable husband sell his wife inorder to have another at will? Can we take a step without seeing adultery consummated, close to being so, or ardent desires that it should be?

Why, then, despair at finding the manner which will give each one his liberty through foreseeing, at the period of the wedding itself, the separation which may follow, and which often will not take place, if it is permitted and

foreseen? Why should the act of marriage not include within it the clauses of the separation? In all more or less poor conditions, on always has money when one marries, because one prepares for this in advance. Well then, let it not costanyone anything to contract these bonds; let the man of the law deliver the contract gratis; let the man of religion notdare to demand the least recompense; but let each family of the spouses, or the spouses themselves, be obliged, before being joined, to deposit at what we will call the matrimonial bank, a sum proportionate to the estate of the contracting parties, from ten thousand francs to ten francs for the poorest. This revenue, certainly considerable, will serve to provide for the education of children abandoned after the separation of the spouses; they will be, as in Sparta, children of the fatherland, and certainly their education will be preferable to that which they would receive from their separated fathers and mothers, disordered, and often ruined. Let us not fear that the expenses required by these children will surpass the funds of this bank; should this be the case, should one deliberatewhen it is a matter of the happiness of all? But let not fear at all, to deprive themselves of their children is the last effort of fathers and mothers; nature orders them to love them, and the civil order should be reassured when nature commands. Finally, we should not keep hidden from ourselves that, if the bonds of marriage constrain spouses to live together when they are no longer fitting for each other, all the resources of the best-planned morality will be useless for man’s happiness. In France, we at first allowed the greatest facility for unhappy spouse who sighed for a long time after their separation; some abused the benefits of the law; some women divorced several times afterhaving taken advantage of their contracts in case of divorce; some men married several women in a row, and only seemed to marry in order to satisfy their passions. These abuses are great, doubtless, but what are they in comparisonwith the general unhappiness with which mankind is burdened by indissoluble bonds? Let us rely on the society of honest folk who punish all the crimes that the law cannot address;

it rejects the shameless libertine, as it banishes from its breast the scoundrel and the crook who, after having enriched themselves, cannot obtain the honor of seeing seated at their table the honest man who disdains them. There is their gnawing eternal punishment; they would like, after having stolen an immense fortune, to approach and be confused with honest folk; a vain hope, their blot is imprinted on their brow, it cannot be effaced. What effortsare not made, each day, by suspected women to enter into theintimacy of honest women! They have never been able to do so. Virtuous poverty visits them sometimes, but the lost woman knows well that misery, in this case, compels virtue to humiliate itself, and that such a woman, as virtuous as she is indigent, would blush to appear in public with the woman whom she courts in her homes. For the rest, let us notfear that in a republic the obstacles to divorce should everbe too increased; the republican legislator only issues fromthe class of the people in order to soon return there. He knows the tears of the honest man associated with disorderedcoquetry; he has seen from close up the honest and sweet woman, mistreated, plagued by the libertine scoundrel; he argues his own cause in arguing the cause of all. It only falls to the immoral despot, to the followers that he favors, to live without mores while demanding that the rest of men be subject to their tyrannical empire.

XVI.

Man protected by love into his old age.

We have just shown man protected, directed by love in the three first ages of his life: it remains for us to see if even in his old age he does not receive his sweetest consolations from love. Yes, let us not doubt it; just as, when in his cradle, the tender loving reactions of his parents were his surest titles; having arrived in old age, near the approaches to the tomb, his children render to him

the tribute of tenderness that he had bestowed on them during the time of their childhood. This time of childhood is never effaced from man’s memory; my father loved me, he says, he devoted all his cares to me; today that I am in theflower of my age, and he is in old age, I want to render himthe same cares with which he protected my weakness; my life,then, was but a spark, he deigned to preserve it; his life is now only a whisper, and it falls to me to reanimate him.

Where does man still find some joy in his old age? Where does the old man feel that he regains his strength fora moment? It is when he finds once more the woman that he loved, and by whom he was loved. What memories for the two! What pleasures, but what regrets! These two sensations as well often travel together for the old man; some tears almost always accompany the least development of his joy. Bacchus, in reviving his old existence favors it yet throughreminiscences of tenderness past and recollection sof a pleasure which is no more.

Voltaire, in his old age, still wishes to kiss the breast ofa woman who was dear to him. — “What”, she said to him, “you still love what you used to call your little rogues?” — “They have become great hangers”, answered the poet, who always liked contrasts. Jean-Jacques, would you have made this cruel answer to the woman who had once charmed you? No, tender appreciation would replace the fire of love, extinguished by time and age.

We have just shown that man at every age is vivified orrewarded by love, but honest love which respects mores. The most inconstant of gods, when men are in the prime of their age, is perhaps the most appreciative towards those who havesacrificed on his altars. – But, you will say, you show us love the benefactor of man, rather than regulator of mores. --- Yes, but in turn, I ask if one can be happy, without being good? Or good, without being happy? And if one can be unhappy, without, almost always, being wicked? The happinessof all depends on the well-being of each one individually;

let us make man happy, and he cannot be if he is opposed in the sharpest, the most imperious of his penchants. Let us make man happy, I say, and his happiness will redound for all his brothers.

In observing that love is still, for the legislator, only an unexplained enigma, whose electric flame could govern mores in the best possible order, let us press this argument further.

NOTE FOR THE SIXTEENTH CHAPTER.

(1) Theologians, philosophers have had considerable discussion for and against the existence of innate ideas. Should not they have said, in order to be in agreement, thatinnate sentiments, such as those of love, the preservation of one’s being, and consequently amour-propre, ought to produce the innate ideas relative to the innate sentiments that cause them to arise? Would they deny that these three sentiments are natural and innate in man? Then one most renounce one’s most sensitive perceptions.

Chapter 17. Continuation of the same subject; new example on the sources of lying, and on

the means of protecting youth from it.

In looking deeply into the political state of man in society, we observe that he has renounced almost all his natural properties, which he is now only permitted to enjoy after the modification of the laws; and that he does not cease to tacitly claim his primitive rights through overturning mores. We now are only speaking about his physical properties. These ancient and principal properties are the productions of the earth and women. Woman is man’s property, but he is also woman’s property, after having contracted an alliance with her. It is this reciprocal property which overturns mores, and it is it which, well directed, ought to provide us with the golden age. It did exist, they say, and it was the age of innocence; cannot we,in the Age of Enlightenment, do that the men of the ages of ignorance have done? In order to succeed in this project, itis with a firm step that we must address these questions:

Cannot man in society gain as much benefit from the dominant passion of love as he undergoes torments?

Can we not, regarding this principal subject, which does all, which decidesall in the final analysis; which determines the amour-propre, which gives the loveof luxury and of riches…. can we not, I say, make him, regarding this subject, as sincere as he has the habit of lying and dissimulating?

Will we still continue to see for a long time spouses who pretend to love each other, and who mutually deceive each other in order to not, so to speak, injure good mores?

Will we still always see women who weep because one no longer loves them; and men who only adore women who reject them and scorn them?

Will we still see lovers persecuted by their relatives, although they love in good faith, and they desire to be united under the bonds of marriage?

Finally, will the reproaches of seduction always be a labyrinth where one cannot distinguish the guilty party?

Various novels and comedies have been made having the Education of Love as title, but these sorts of productions, although moral, have one particular goal, that is to amuse the multitude: I mean to say, amuse much, educate as much as is possible. With respect to authors of political morality itself, they seem to have feared to address these questions. They recognize the evil, present us with some palliatives which are insufficient to extirpate it: they recall us toward primitive society. And connections does it still have with our own? Few men surrounded by the abundant fruit of the earth, and living almost in solitude, have an interest in mutually caressing each other, as the million souls enclosedin an area such as Paris must deceive each other with false caresses while eating the grass beneath their feat. The atmosphere of a big city is a cloud that lying has formed. In the big cities, children lie to get sugar, men to have money, consideration, and women, and women are busy only with deceiving men. Others contend in order to acquire glory, reputation, and these are not the smallest liars. Thedeath bed, not more than the marriage bed, is not exempt from deception; one dies as one has lived: unsure of one’s principles and the future, one trembles, and one still wantsto play the hero in order to deceive the spectators, the menof one’s century and posterity152. With regard to moralists, I repeat, they invite us to bring ourselves closer to nature, the great word is there; and they do not dare to avow thatit is necessary to renounce almost all of our natural rightsso as not to violate civil laws, without which society wouldonly be a lair of brigands. Yes, natural laws are divine, and can be practiced in the almost deserted forests; but God

152 (G): In the midst of misfortunes, how often does one say I will die! knowing verywell that one will not die of it; and I don’t care, when this is not at all the case.

brings the sexes together, he orders societies: then no natural right is legitimate if it is not authorized by law.

We know this: certain animals live in society, and haveonly their instinct and their strength as legislators; but they have the happiness of being beasts, that is to say, of punctually obeying their instinct without being able to infringe it. They are deprived of that amour-propre, of thatpersonal instinct which destroys and does all in man: but how petty he is in his pride! O sublime and first of all thepolyps that nature produces, how cowardly you are, when you think that you are able to lie with impunity!

How this labyrinth needs to still be explained to the advantage of mores! It is a dreadful labyrinth for any man who views it with sang-froid. However, we cannot choose eachother and quit each other like savages. Far from me the notion of spoiling mores, when I am making efforts to establish them in a solid way; so that man can finally take off the mask and live without lying in the most policed grand society153. But let us not lose courage; already the general spirit of education cries: Truth! Truth in mores as in mathematics! The man unveiled in the last retreats of hissubtleties and his cunning amour-propre is close to making use of the truth as being his final refuge. The institute awards a prize154 to the author who will determine the influence of signs on the formation of ideas. Locke will be considered, commented on in more than one spot; the perfection of human understanding can be no other thing thanthe intimate knowledge of universal truth; once generally recognized, the respect that it imposes will precipitate odious lying to the depth of this same well, whence august truth will issue beaming with glory. No, let us not be discouraged; let must make new efforts to regenerate its empire and bring men back to the sole principle which can make them happy, I mean to say, the truth of all things.

153 (TN): Note at end of chapter. 154 (G): Year 4.

Before examining whence comes the weakness of our character and our penchant for dissimulation, let us answer the questions which we have asked earlier.

1. By what means can one establish more sincerity in love? There is only one means; this is allowing spouses to break the knots that they imprudently contracted. We are deceivedwhen we are seeking each other, the passion of love abuses us, and the spouses who detest each other are truer than thelovers who swear eternal love to each other.

2. Will we still continue to see for a long time spouses who pretend to love each other, and who mutually deceive each other in order to not, so to speak, injure good mores?

3. Will we still always see women (we have said) who weep because one no longer loves them; and men who only adore women who reject them and scorn them? — This is the trainingof lovers, it is the game of amour-propre, of coquetry and fatuity, of stupidity; let us let them do it, they reciprocally each other with their ruses and their perfidy! For the rest, by substituting truth for lies in our political and domestic mores; by degrading the prejudices offalse honor and causing that of true honor, I mean to say veracity, to reign in its place, even the mores of the boudoirs will be regenerated. Let us follow, I repeat, the custom of the Greeks and the early Romans: deep and religious respect for honest women, under pain of infamy. Let us let young people amuse themselves with Laïs, as with their race horses. Just like at Athens, let us esteem the Aspasias who will elevate the soul of their lovers; let us severely and publicly punish the brazen courtesans. Here is what we are lacking in order to be happier. Governors of France! Speak, the entire nation will follow your impulses.

4. Will we still see lovers persecuted by their relatives, although they love in good faith, and they desire to be united under the bonds of marriage? We have indicated the mean of rendering the son less dependent on his father. In

this almost unique circumstance, the authority of the laws should counterbalance paternal authority, since it is at thesame time that love is calmed in the father’s heart, and that he exercises his dominion over that of his child.

5. Finally, will the reproaches of seduction always be a labyrinth where one cannot distinguish the guilty party? Letthe paid teacher be punished severely by the laws if he seduces his young student, or let him cease, for the period of one year, to be teacher if he wishes to become her spouse; let the written promise of the man to the woman be sacred when she demands it. Young lovers, be provided with this if you do not wish to be deceived; think that the true consecration of your marriage is at the moment where you abandon yourself to your lover; the ceremonies which follow are no more than formalities to render it more solemn.

In order to arrive at a true solution, let us consider,finally, that the sentiment of love, regarding which one abuses youth, causes youth, firstly, to contract the habit of dissembling all its penchants, which, if they are not yetimpassioned, do not take long to become so. Nature creates the young man fiery, so that this red fruit can slake his thirst; but religion tells him at the same time to resist onpain of eternal damnation. One teaches him that a good and abad principle are disputing for his conscience; that hell isprovoking him, that his guardian angel is advising him, thathe should resist the former and follow the impulse of the other. However, in spite of his efforts, he feels, so much that he cannot doubt it, that the inclination toward vice, that the inclination of the devil is the stronger, and is the one which compels him. To present hell to him with the traits of candor, with the traits of a virgin who makes his blood boil with the most voluptuous delirium!....This is what one does and what the young man absolutely rejects. Nevertheless, he pretends to acquiesce to what one demands of his credulity, he conceals his desires; hypocrisy then replaces his original veracity, and once he has acquired thehabit of feigning successfully this least vincible of

penchants, once he feels his entire being congratulate him on his revolt, he carries over his ideas of triumphant rebellion to all the dogmas of morality with which one wishes to instruct him: they have lied to me on one point, he says to himself, doubtless they are still imposing on me yet further; whatever they may say to me, let us judge ourselves and let us only connect this our real enjoyments.

The dissimulation which, after the fall of the Greeks and the Romans, dishonors almost every part of the known world, is, I believe, the work of the priests. I do not say that their intention was to make us dissimulators and liars;but they have forced us to it by their institutions and their doctrine, too opposed to the vow of nature. In their narrow views they have fulminated anathema against those who, outside marriage, would deliver themselves to their amorous inclination; they have covered the earth with asylums intended to protect the chastity of the two sexes, and all these victims of error have spent their sad lives inlies, in opposition to their vows, which their conscience and their senses denied at every moment. The very vows of the uncloistered priests, offered as an example to the world, were every day contradicted by their mores. The rubicund visage of the monk, his stentorian voice which preached chastity, discouraged modesty.

Each family welcomed within itself one of these anchorites, was governed by his advices, and thus received lessons in hypocrisy and lying. Each Christian, moreover, had his confessor. The priests certainly felt that love was the true motive force of mores; but, instead of following the example of the Greeks and the Romans, who frankly avowedthat love’s passion was irresistible, and that the various wife was the ornament of her country, they wanted, in an absolute manner, to repress love, to order abstinence, to cover us with hates, while at the same time they gorged themselves with abundance, seduced our daughters and our wives, and took power over our goods…..It is thus that they destroyed the frank mores of our ancients, while replacing

them with the most frightful of the vices, hypocrisy, which is none other than lying put into action. Finally, we think that the virtues too far above our forces easily degenerate into falsity. What does the austere cenobite, the immaculatevestal become, if one perceives Aspasia, if the other sees Alcibiades? Let us reflect well upon this. I have said elsewhere (in my Essays on Music), that Lycurgus, the wisest of legislators, despoiled modesty in order to attenuate the power of love, which, in a climate such as that of the Greeks, would have soon held sway over love of the fatherland. Here, I will say further: dreading hypocrisy andlying, Lycurgus unveiled modesty, showed the most beautiful girls naked in the games. He knew that the more one hides agod in the shadows of his sanctuary, the more power it has over the springs of the imagination. Our women, formerly veiled from head to feet, thus rendered all their charms perfect and desirable: they are less dangerous now that the veil is less thick155. Do not say, vile impostor, that I am preaching impudicity, since I seek the truth without hypocrisy. My opinion is, that in being obstinate in refusing too much to nature, one exposes oneself to the greatest dangers. The hermit who, in his desert, found the sandal of a woman, and who, after having contemplated it, rises by degrees from the cast-off to the creature, was moreexposed to temptation than one of us who enters the shop where a thousand cute shoes have been tried on; more exposedthat he who lives in the midst of the most seductive women. I am saying, thus, that living far from all dangers, fillingthe imagination of youth with often factitious perils which menace his chastity, is, sooner or later, to precipitate himinto the abyss which his excited imagination creates and exaggerates for him. The excessive fear of danger makes us pusillanimous and unable to brave danger when it presents itself. If this Dutch servant, who, they say, left her 155 (G): I read somewhere that a queen, in the country subject to her, seeing mores corrupted by pederasty, gave the example, and ordered that her sex be veiled from head to feet; and that this modest mien soon returned men to the true cult of Venus.

lighted candle in a barrel of gunpowder had known the peril,would she have been sought out? What have you done with your candle, the merchant said to her, seeing her descend from the loft with her hands full of merchandise? — I set itdown, she said, in a barrel of black grains which is up there. — Go up to get it, he said to her, without seeming to be upset, and at that moment he seized his children and fled with his wife. A quarter-hour later (and which was certainlylong, since at every moment he thought he would see his house and a quarter of the town fly into the air), he went home, saw the candle which had gone out, still covered with powder, which the ignorant domestic had gone to get without precautions, and perhaps even while singing.

In order to pursue and conclude our subject, interrupted for a moment by this anecdote, I will say that, certainly, decency in a beautiful woman represses the desires of the young man, as coquetry excites them; that, without wishing to compare our climate to that of the Greeks, we can be more decent and circumspect than they; butI say further, the ardent young man, overseen, and forced torepress his desires, becomes a hypocrite; it concentrates inhis soul a fire which will only be more dangerous for society. Woe to innocence if he is able to escape his overseers! What cunning plots, what lies will he concoct in order to achieve his ends! Like the bird in a cage, he killshimself against the bars of his prison, which he wants to force. Woe to himself if he finds some vile object easy to be procured? Ask the honest country girls who come to serve in the cities with which men their virtue is safest, with the man whose passions are satisfied, or with the hypocrite who keeps in his heart a thousand voluptuous desires that heis burning to satiate? Ask well-born women who, in their youth, was their first seducer. Rarely will they accuse the young man living amid pleasures and cherished by women whom he promptly abandons if he cannot succeed in pleasing them; but they will recall some unhappy man, aimless, rejected by amiable women because of his appearance or his pettish

nature; some ridiculous character, a superannuated miser, some Tartuffe whose austere mien was derided by the innocence which he wanted to pervert (2).

We will only truly be men when we attach no more importance to things than they deserve. After all, a woman is only a woman. This is much, certainly; but finally, this is only a woman, for whom too much activity on our part blunts desires before they are born. If you did not go to seek her with so much haste, she would come to look for you with skill. After having described, admired the qualities oflove ordained by nature in order to maintain the great work of the reproduction of beings, I am far from wanting to reduce them; I only blame excess, and I say that in looking well at the true reason for our great amorous foolishnesses, one is sometimes tempted to conceal oneself. Let us leave tothe fine arts the right to exaggerate their pictures; but, in everything which matters to general happiness, it is appropriate for morality to make it known that going beyond the real goal is to prepare a reaction which is baleful for good mores. Inexperience wants to be directed, or rather preserved; but, let us reflect on this well, it is not in depriving inexperience of everything that we can arrive at this goal. If your son, still young, falls in love with the daughter of your porter, hasten to show him other girls thatre more amiable, more appropriate to your estate, and avoid imprisoning him in his room. There are many more young people whom constraint has cast into moral disorder or into a mortal depression than those who would have succumbed, being free. More honest girls have perished as a result of their clandestine rebellions than those left to their own devices since childhood. One would dare to say, even, that more prostitutes escape a premature death, than girls kept under lock and key. Let us take measures that are as frank as they are wise; let us no longer pretend to proscribe, to curse, that which we divine in secret, for soon this secret

escapes, and then only the evidence of the lie remains156. The ancients were idolaters, impious, they tell you; they raised temples to Venus, and to the protective divinities ofworldly passions. Why then impious? One ran to the temple ofVenus, another to Uranus or Minerva, another to Pluto: they were all great, these ancients, although vicious, for they concealed nothing from themselves. Infamous man, what are you doing? said Diogenes. Venus is the cause of the perversity of your mores! Senseless Diogenes, answered the young Athenian; you govern the poor world, and yet your boudoirs are our porticos, where, when pressed by need, you go, you say, to plant a man.

We have just shown how the passion of love, well-directed, would contribute to the preparation of mores. But,if it is important to direct its flame in order to kindle a young heart with the holy love of virtue, it is sometimes dangerous to want to extinguish it too soon, and collide head one with a passion, which, far from receiving laws, gives them to all of nature.

NOTES FOR THE SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER

(1) Some exasperated men formerly invoked agrarian laws as the only refuge of persecuted and impoverished men; they thought that gold is everything in this world. What purpose would new shares serve? For, from the very day when they were done, the laziness and ignorance of some, the industry,the spirit, and activity of the others, would already 156 (G): Why, some timorous souls will say, why this obstinacy in wanting to relax the brake which is most necessary for mores? Is it libertinage that leads the author of this book there? – No; for a long time I have only lived abstinence in every way. But good souls! Have you then not yet noticed? The attraction which reigns between the two sexes, too much concealed by opinion, too much repressed by laws and mores, is the source of more lies, in a country, than there are grains of sand at the shores of its rivers. Without counting the thousands of individuals who perish before formally existing, or after their corporal existence. Atrocious crimes! whose reason is entirely in the need to lie in order to prevent the appearance of immorality.

destroy the equality of fortunes. No, happiness does not depend on something impossible; it has to do with men, generally rebelling, rejecting on every point, and with horror, cunning and lies. (2) Cato, seeing a young man leaving a prostitute’s house, grasped his hand, and said to him: My friend, I congratulate you on being honest. Which meant: I congratulate you on respecting honest women.

Chapter 18. On the danger of imprudently repressing the passions.

The natural sensibility of beings is the first of the final causes, and perhaps the only one that exists in all ofnature, with some modifications. Movement, life, the passions, and death are effects of this cause. The sensitivebeing, without passion, does not exist. From the irascible midge, the choleric little mutt, the furious lion, to the man who is full of himself – everything announces the price that all sentient beings attach to life. In inflicting any kind of punishment, binding a being with all four members toprevent it from defending itself is the most horrible state and the most against nature; in this case, I would not be surprised if he would die from rage, even if the blows he received were bearable. Let us repress, I agree to this, theimpulse of life that can be harmful; we will imitate nature that leaves no excess unpunished; but let us do as nature does, let us not violently halt the impetuosity of the natural passions, in the fear that the shock of the three movements, progressive, repulsive, and reactive, might kill the individual.

To the extent that we are undecided between evil and good, instinct halts us and warns us; but once passions is mixed in, once we run with vehemence toward the goal to which it is dragging us, then nature lets us act, certain that we will be punished for the least excess that we will commit. However, let us do like nature in this as well: nature heals the scars from the wounds of the furious one who has gone beyond the limits of his faculties; the blood that flows from these, and coagulates, is a natural remedy for his wounds. In the same way assisting the man who is suffering the punishment for his excesses is a lesson more profitable for him than misplaced remonstrances, dungeons, and beatings. I would even refrain from reminding the child who is weeping about his faults that I had warned him about

the dangers he was exposing himself to; I would prefer, and this means would be more useful, for him to remember by himself, and that he would only perceive my indulgence and my distress. A child said: it is better, in playing, to do a lot of bad things, rather than a little; in the former case one is caressed, in the latter one is beaten. Let us do even better than all we have just said, letus prevent, turn away the excess before it happens; let us take the passions at their source, to be able to direct themwisely: but, and I say it once more, to absolutely resist the passions which are excited and have reached their apogee, is to kill the patient, is to stifle the enraged person without having tried any remedy, it is to create a rebel, if he has courage, a hypocrite, if he has little, or an imbecile if he lets himself be subjugated without using any reasoning.

We would believe that vicious inclinations are the mostnatural, since excess is in the nature of the passions. Doesnature, then, want us to be vicious? -- On the contrary, nature has done everything for the best with regard to general order, if not in favor of individuals; but society has reversed everything, this is what comes from nature whenmen multiply and live in close proximity. In a word, the vicious passions come from the abuse that we make of the best things, of those things that are the most indispensable, to which we are the most inclined, that nature wishes, that we all want, and all at the same time with that much more fury since we are overseen, and since they tell us that our fathers ceded them forever to other proprietors. Forever! This word sounds absurd when spoken byan ephemeral being such as man. This is the source of the baleful passions which must be repressed with that much moreprudence, since it is not a question of uprooting them from the human heart, but of giving them a direction which is favorable to mores. We repeat: laws are only instituted in order to defend that which we love too generally and for which their abuse is baleful. The love we have for the things that kill us only shows the indispensability of dying. The law has no need to authorize the things that are

indispensable: for example, it is pointless for it to say: We order you to love women, so that the human species will be ceaselessly regenerated; but it orders us to love them with decorum. It likewise will not say: We order you to love good wine; but the mores of hot countries reprove drunkenness.

One can judge a man when one knows by which passion he is dominated, and judging one man, in this case, is to know them all; it is the same allure that drives them, I mean to say, love of self. If some seem to forget themselves in favor of others, which we are far from condemning, it is because then they make a detour in order to always return tothe same goal, personal interest. Just as the undeclared lover of a woman honors her at first with his profound respect, which diminished each day until he has proved to her his true sentiments, and that which his respect means.

There are two sorts of passions; real passions, like those which protect the existence of the individual; and factitious ones, such as those which flatter exalted amour-propre. If we are their masters, what sort among these two passions should we prefer to inspire in men? I would dare, almost, to say the factitious passions, in order to diminishthe effect of the real ones, which it is necessary to temperunendingly. Also, let us note that, with the exception of love, which with differing forms belongs to all the estates,factitious passions are those of the people of spirit, who cannot descend to the usage of things that are vulgar and too material for them. Consider us, they say, this is our main need. The real or material passions are those of the ordinary man; through his industry, he seeks everything which can flatter his senses; then, surrounded by his opulence, he takes for himself all the consideration that weaccord to his splendid furniture, which the multitude enviesand would like to take away from him. (1). The exclusive passion for gold is the basest passion for one who is affected by it, and the most scorned by all the others. I say exclusive, and it is not this at all, since gold represents that which can satisfy all the passions, except

those of people of spirit. He who loves gold, and make it his master, is thus a fool who seems to have to satisfy all his passions; he takes more than his share of the goods of this world which are the property of all; he has more desirethan needs; he is an monopolist of the goods of others; thisis why he is generally odious. He is even so absorbed in hisdesires, as vast as they are inconsiderate, that he amasses gold in his coffers, because it represents the universal warehouse of all things; while, overwhelmed by old age and infirmities, he totters with every step toward his grave, his only remaining need. -- We must then second the efforts of the ancient philosophers, in inspiring scorn for riches. Our modern Diogenes did this and preached by example; what did he get for it? Considerable reputation, certainly, but his life wasunhappy. Let us capitulate then, and let us ask no more for man to deprive himself of everything, in the fear that he may take back in ostentation that which he abandons to us inthe communal goods of life. I prefer a man who nicely takes his piece of the general cake, than the one who scorns it, or seems to scorn it; it is impossible to persuade man that goods are bad; they prefer to suffer from the results of intemperance than those of scarcity. Man, do you good, be happy, this is the vow of nature, and you share it with ardor; it is the only way to love men and to be happy in their happiness. But let your fortune be the fruit of a legitimate industry; for I warn you that a badly acquired good is a crushing weight under one sighs rather than breathing freely.

Hateful passions are the scourge of society, and yet hate finds and corrects in us defects that love and friendship ignore or pardon to our harm. The Christian religion is sublime when it orders us to forgive injuries: if they strike you on the cheek, turn the other cheek, it says; but this submission is too degrading and too contrary to nature to make it a moral law fitting for educated men. Good God! Whatwould a people of men slapping and being slapped be, and the

latter thanking the former for the honor that they certainlymeant to do them? It is only the delirium of virtue that canpresume the existence of this grotesque picture; and all delirium, all excesses, are baleful.

Envy, jealousy are inevitable reactions for every man who desires that which another possesses. Will you say crudely to a young man that envy, jealousy, or what we are obliged to call emulation, are criminal? No, for in inspiring him with love for talents and virtues, you cannot prevent them from arising. Say to him, then, make your virtues, your talents worthy of envy; be envied instead of being envious; but do not wish this for him who did today what you wanted to have done yesterday, or that which you will execute tomorrow following his example, if you can; if you cannot, think that it would be dreadful for you to resemble the worst being in nature, the eunuch in the harem,who makes the faculties of others useless in order to console himself for his own impotence.

Even anger, when it is not extreme nor long, is a natural movement that it would be immoral to be able to repress. We can blame the man who is upset, and praise the one who is never upset; but from the point of view which concerns us now, the most dangerous man in the world would be the one who is able suffer and conceal the affronts that we address to him without appearing to be moved. It is only a courtier, an extraordinary ambassador who has perhaps finished his apprenticeship in this perfidious métier that gives the power of halting the impression at the throat so that it does not appear on the face. One needs to take the pulse of this sort of folk, before asking them how they are doing.

In observing up close the danger of repressing inconsiderately the violent passions, one could almost always draw similar consequences. The graver the malady, themore prudence is needed in the administration of curative

remedies, in the fear of killing the patient. It is thus forpassions, or the efforts that nature makes in order to arrive at its ends: these efforts are physical or moral effects that have their causes in us, and which we can only victoriously combat by opposing to them other physical or moral causes which modify the former. It is thus that an unhappy penchant is changed into happiness, if a happier passion takes its place. It is thus that the envious and surly man becomes amiable after a success; that the vaporouswoman sparkles with spirit and gaiety, if her tender vows are fulfilled. It is thus the dramatic author, without talent, has the pleasure of thinking himself Racine or Molière, as long as the rehearsals of his play last. It is thus that a cantankerous writer, whose failures have brutalized his amour-propre, suddenly becomes a good man in asking for his place in the institute. Will we, in opposing them, desolate beyond measure these unhappy but hopeful people? No, in spite of his egotism, there is in the heart of man a basis of commiseration stemming from his own weaknesses and perhaps from his own amour-propre, which obliges him to have compassions, to respect the imperious desires of the impassioned man. If he asks passionately, andwith great cries, we conceal this at least until after the outcry to make him understand that his vows are unreasonable; after which, we scarcely fail to offer him some compensations.

In taking some passions at random, I ask, what are jealousy, avarice, devotion, love, despair?....Movements without which we, people and animals, would only be automata. Jealousy is the passion preserving the common happiness, although it is the despair of lovers. This is theCerberus not only of love, but of everything that is dear tous. Avarice is for the physical more or less that which jealousy is for the moral. Devotion is the extreme proof of the appreciating sensitivity, although the mother of superstition and fanaticism; devotion is love even separatedfrom the senses. Love is the cherished model of happiness, at the same time that it is the source of the least

supportable torments. Despair, when accompanied by remorse,is one of the most terrible passions; but it is a moral tempest which shakes the heart of our most mortal enemies, and draws from them pardon for our gravest faults. It is also the hideous term of the unforgivable crime, such as they depict for us the eternal damnation of the angels rebelling against divine omnipotence.

The passions, both good and bad, always have various facets depending on which we see them as useful or baleful. — But, you will say, why ask indulgence for the vicious passions? Let us combat rather their pernicious effects, andlet us not cede them in nothing the domain of mores. Where are, moreover, the proofs that the passions, treated with consideration, are less baleful for society, than when we wage continuing war on them? — These questions require enough development that they should be considered in the following chapter.

NOTE FOR THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER.

(1) You may judge how much our opinion differs from that of Rousseau. He combats the amour-propre that he sees being unendingly fomented by distinguished talents. I would think like he does, if one could engage men to leave the cities inorder to go to the countries, and from then on these talentswould be useless; but, without this almost impossible mutation, it seems that love of talents is preferable to love of riches without education; for the ignorant rich man is the target of all the passions of egotism and despotism. For the rest, they tell us that Rousseau held this opinion, but that Diderot, whom he went to see at Vincennes, told himhe would not be eloquent, that he would not take the proposed prize, if he did not prove the opposite. In his Confessions, J.-J. says that the idea is his, and we must believe him; but all those who, like myself, knew Diderot,

sensed how much these flashes, which are decisive for a work, belonged to his genius.

END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

THIRD VOLUME

Chapter 1. Whether one obtains more from men through a reasonable tolerance, than

through overmuch severity

If the example of two countries, one, tolerant, the other, intolerant, could guide us in the choice that we wishto make! If some tolerant monarchy, some tolerant republic, in opposition to despotic Turkey, to inquisitorial Spain, could provide us with support! We only see Pennsylvania where the good Quaker offers us the happiness, always limited, that we can hope for there. We will try to prove, below, what we are suggesting. With respect to the two governments presented as intolerant, they cannot provide us with the same assistance; for they are only intolerant regarding some points of political or spiritual morality, and seem to grant men ample compensations in the sweetest oftheir passion, that of sex. Mohammed had scrutinized the human heart, and had studied the laws of Lycurgus. Man is born a dominator, he seems to have said to himself, and for the Muslims, then, let us give our inheritance: be, all of you, despots of your women, and I will reign despotically through the laws. Have women at your discretion in this world, and a multitude of yet more charming, more voluptuoushouris in the next….After having accomplished his promise inthat which regards our world, let us not be surprised at hissuccess. However, if, with the plurality of women, a law of the Koran did not render his people abstemious; if he had left them the freedom to use strong liquors instead of prohibiting them, we can believe that his sect would have vanished long ago; but, for political ends, he allowed pleasures which enervate courage, and forbid the spirituous beverages which give man his energy.

In showing itself to be intolerant in the matter of religion, Spain often lifts the curtain regarding amorous

intrigues and their baleful results. The following fact was attested to me by an ambassador in Madrid, a man worthy of being trusted. He went into the country nearby the capital; he stopped for a moment in a grove in order to take partin the joy of the residents of the place who were dancing under the foliage; he noted a young man hidden behind a bush, who was attentively spying on the joyous band; all at once he launched himself toward the group, and struck, with a mortal blow, one of the young women; she had just been married only a few hours before. The ambassador continued onhis way; but, which seems incredible, is that when he passedonce more by the same place some days later, he recognized the murder, who was sitting peacefully with his fishing linein the water. In returning to Madrid, and meeting with the corregidor, he could not restrain himself from asking if he knew of a murder committed in such a place in the midst of acountry festival, and if he knew where the murderer was: “Wedid not look for him”, he said coldly; “love had made him furious; he adored her, he was supposed to marry the girl that he punished, and who had just married his rival”. — In the north he would have been skinned alive, but in return one can skip mass, and chase away the hypocritical monk who courts our wives in order to better seduce our daughters.

What in this world is more respectable than the veracity ofthe Quakers? All merchants, and in good faith, loyalty is the basis of their business and their actions; they prohibited from making oaths; the yes of one of these men isworth all the raised hands of honest men! They humble themselves before no man; they only respect God, nature, andtruth. A respectable sect! Happy Thomas Penn! Philanthropy was in your soul, and from this divine germ must one day be born concord among men, spread across our terrestrial globe.— But we love pleasure; it is the secret goal of all our actions, and the Quakers remain absorbed in taciturnity, in monotony; this somber exterior is enough to prevent them from gaining converts. — Well then, let us rectify this too severe aspect, and let us preserve their fundamental dogmas.For the rest, it is hard to understand why lovers of truth

have a somber humor. This people, the closest to God, shouldbe exempt from madness, certainly; but the joy of the soul should be their inheritance. It should appear in their eyes,on their lips, and in their discourse. Perhaps, surrounded by perfidious men from other sects, they think they are obliged to impose on them the respect which their elevated mores deserves; without prohibiting entry into their countryto anyone, they think they are worthy, and rightly so, to dwell alone in the asylum where the truth is respected. Let us desire, however, that they should not separate themselvesentirely from other men, who have such a great need of theirexample; and so that we run en masse to their school, let uswish that they add to their probity some expansive pleasureswhich attract and retain all men to their respectable sect. I would love to see them institute some public games, familyfeasts, where poetry, music and dance would compete to display their joy. Until the present day, I have only depicted in music the mores of the day, mores often factitious and foreign to my heart; but how sweet it would be to make resound the accents of a people happy through their tolerant laws, their mores, their sincere customs; a people who, singing their own virtues within their families,would find there their greatest happiness! Then this angelicpeople should be and will be the model for all the peoples of the earth.

Let us oppose to this celestial picture the world as itis: men who only approach each other in order to spy on eachother, who do not dare to undertake any business between them without defiance; who, prey to all the subversive passion, everywhere dread punishment or scorn, because they have almost always acted in bad faith; who constantly confound the rights of nature with the laws which they have sworn to respect; who feel the continual struggle which mustunavoidably exist for those who wish what they cannot, and who choose to deceive themselves in order to replace the equilibrium of chaos with that of good order, who, finally have no other pleasures than that of stunning themselves in order to imagine that they are happy. This is where lying leads, not matter how well fashioned it may be.

Let us not be astonished that in the midst of luxury, feasts, parties, the philosopher maintains a worried air; itis then that, absorbed in his reflections, he observes the factitious goal which directs our pleasures; he sees that asa final result the effusions of joy only serve to be mutually imposed on each other. Perhaps, he says to himself,these habits of luxury will never be paid; these diamonds – perhaps they were stolen through cunning; perhaps these young spouses who think themselves rich have naught but their love, they will weep after the dance in seeing their poverty; perhaps, they do not love each other at all, the vain hope of enriching themselves alone has joined them as well as their families; here, everyone is deceived, father, mother, bridegroom, bride, relatives, not to forget the poetof the epithalamium and the hungry parasite, who pay for their supper with the basest flatteries157. And, I repeat once more: everything would be rectified in our mores, if opinion, this queen of the world, wished that lying should be matter for horror among men; if their law of honor, theironly good law said: Do not lie, and you will be perfect. Man! Know thenthat the rights of nature no longer exist when you have renounced them in order to live in society. Do you regret them?Run to an uninhabited place; bring there your company, your children, and live as you like. But there, you will be virtuous; lying is born from factitious needs, and we have the art of increasing them every day through a thousand superfluities.

Natural penchants are a necessary result of our needs and of the animal economy; but the penchants of the natural man become passions for the civilized man, through the difficulty of possessing that which belongs to others. Despotically repressing one of these passionate desires, is to stoke the fire that produces them: for, even while losingone of our senses, the vital forces that feed it report to

157 (G): This picture would be exaggerated to the extent of the sensitivity ofthe philosopher that I suppose present, if we did not have in view the disorder of the great cities, where false pomp is as common as pleasures without gaiety.

other senses, and in fortifying the faculties, so that the compression of one of our passions only serves to exasperatethe others. Almost all winds are opposed to the man cast into society; it is thus prudent to tack when one cannot reach the goal in a straight line; it is thus prudent to tolerate that which one cannot defend without running greater risks; for tolerating in morality is tacking on a stormy sea.

The man of nature having renounced his primitive rightsmust carefully avoid the combat which he constantly renews with the man of society; but, in spite of the abrogations ofthe latter, these two men are only one; it is this which makes the art of legislation so difficult. The balance of the man who has quitted nature in order to enter society, isreduced a few articles, which are applicable to a thousand objects. This is his true catechism, from which he must never divert his eyes. 1. The law of the strongest was all for me: justice, agreed and reciprocal, is all for us. 2. All my desires were penchants, for which I was the master ofsatiating: these penchants, though changed into passions, are crimes when the law reproves their baleful effects. 3. All women were mine, as soon as a yes had sealed the contract; today love is a tyrant whose morality annuls all natural rights; it is a commodity like all other properties,that one usually buys with gold. Rarely man, rich in virtues, is loved by women; they love him, respect him, without being amorous: and philosophers, especially the moderns, are reduced, for the most part, to marrying their servants. 4. Where all was in common, there were no thieves:at present, everything is taken by someone, it must be regained and retaken without violating the law of property. Excepting paid work, obtaining through seduction can be called stealing with grace. 5. The natural man seizes what he desires and is satisfied. We are never satisfied; our desires, our envies, our jealousies are so multiplied, that there are objects or faculties belonging to others; naming all that is coveted is impossible, it is one plus infinity. 6. Finally, the man of nature would be a monster among us;

one may as well cry to him; Here is my wheat and my raisins;here are my pears, my apples .... he would answer: And here I am to eat them.

Once they are perverted, can we still hope to rectify our corrupted mores? Yes, certainly. Nature has left in the heart of man the indelible desires of his ancient liberty; no one can absolutely renounce his natural rights; it is thus in returning to nature from which society has caused usto deviate too much that we can still rectify our mores. This seems to be a paradox, and is not one at all: the man of nature, we have said, would be a monster among us, and however, it is to his rights that we must have recourse whensociety has to much corrupted us; yes, and this necessity shows that society is itself the paradox for which the explanation and the perfect solution are impossible. In the beginning we were one; with one we have made hundreds of millions of billions; we are overwhelmed with this number, it makes us to return to one. This unity would be conventional, certainly; but what would the old age of the world be good for, if experience had not taught us to know the fixed point that separates us, separates our natural rights from those of the member of society? We all know thispoint of law; but we still argue constantly.

Let us summarize. Nature had given us penchants easy tosatisfy when we were scattered through the countryside; we were, so to speak, all thrown together, and with our properties in an earthy cul-de-sac; there, we fought, combatafter combat, to be the first to devour; it is thus that ourpenchants changed, in general, into hateful passions, concentrated or exasperated. We have, I think, proven sufficiently that intolerance leads to dissimulation, as thelatter leads to all the vices. It would not be difficult to prove that Cartouche or Mandrin were less baleful than the hypocrite confessor. Tolerance is the daughter of nature, which cause a punishment fitting the crime to be found even in the abuse of her laws. A meeting of men such as Quakers, whose custom would be modified as we have said, would be a

pacific Lacedaemon, rather than being a warrior. The world such as it is, where a thousand active and reactive passionsare combatted by as many repressive laws which only affect the maladroit, offers only a labyrinth where man is constantly grappling with the law which opposes him; this iswhere the lie becomes the common currency of the country. Once half of a society adopts this lying currency, the otherhalf can only thwart the former by imitating its ruses; and,we ask, what existence can the veridical man seek in the midst of the flux and reflux of this stormy sea? We repeat, one must tack. The more the laws act against vices, the moretheir frequent use weakens them; we must constantly redoublein severity, and when, in spite of all their rigor, the lawsare insufficient, this is the real proof that the dissolution of mores is at its peak. This people is only lacking one degree of immorality, that is, of putting into style, consecrating through opinion all the vices that the laws no longer have the strength to repress. Then, people ofgood want to recriminate; the effort is useless, they are ridiculed; dominant opinion acts so powerfully, that what one agrees to call le bon ton carries the day over superannuated truth. Finally, the people who have arrived atthe worse of all the lies, that of lying to themselves with general approbation. Such are the dissolute mores of the great cities, where all that is factitious has taken the place of reality; where, through interest, the libertine is permitted to ridicule the mores of hymen,; where commerce isonly fraudulent loansharking; where the miser lies in a thousand ways to conceal his gold; where the lustful covers himself with the mantle of Tartuffe; where the amour-propre of the semi-talents of all kinds adores itself with the pompoustitle of preceptor of humankind….We all feel it, other moresare needed for a republic, other mores, without hypocrisy, are necessary. We have played the comedy enough by permitting ourselves by permitting ourselves the appearance of all things; today we must be sincere with ourselves: goodor wicked without indecision. The good will have our esteem,without enthusiasm, for he will do no more than his duty. The wicked will be rejected like weeds from our gardens. Let

us say no more that hypocrisy is an homage that vice pays tovirtue: let us say that hypocrisy is an outrage done to the truth. For the rest, men never return twice to the same opinion; they always bring some modifications that change it. They were good in their isolated hamlets; cruel, wicked when they were half-civilized; hypocrites, reverential, wheneducated; in order to complete the circle of their moral courses, their itinerary is only lacking a voyage in the sacred regions of truth, and this is the part that they willprobably take, were it not through inconstancy, in order to be what they had not yet been at all, finally, in order to have tried everything. And if once they taste the charms of truth, it is appropriate to say: One does not go twice to Corinth. Yes, this is the case for virtue: when we have enjoyed its delights, we can never leave it.

If, before quitting life, I see the noble prejudice, orrather, dogma of truth gain favor among us; if some pen, more eloquent than mine, should trace in lines of fire this more perfect religion in the heart of men; then, certainly, it would be sweet to live and contemplate the most beautifulspectacle; but it is also sweet to end one’s career, to quitthis aerial isle, and to leave the traces of ones’ probity. O you, to whom, until this day, nothing was impossible, finish the great work, the seventh of your labors!

Chapter 2. On moderation.

Because imprudently repressing the passions is to expose oneself to all their fury; because, like stagnant water, concentrated passions engender a pestilential poisons; or, like the inflammable mater buried within the humid earth, ferments and escapes in the fire of volcanoes; likewise, man is never carried to revolt without enclosing in his soul the black passions which condemn his moral health. Just as, further, the volcano smokes for several centuries after the explosion, the passions leave traces behind; the woes that they engender are followed by a long convalescence which teaches us to be moderate. Moderation isthus the fruit of experience; after having well recognized the dangers of excitement or apathy of the excitement or apathy of spirit, we acquire, in some way, a rational and sentimental geometry, which gives the just measure between exaggeration and nothingness; when we can conclude that the passions, imprudently repressed, cause the audacious vices to be born, or worse yet, those of hypocrisy; and that on the contrary, wisely repressed, they are less baleful to society, and can be followed by a salutary repentance, if, during some time, we allowed ourselves to be carried away bythem158.

Moderation is the quality most necessary to man: he is only truly sociable when possessing this virtue that is difficult to acquire. I say, difficult, for being able to resist the impulses of one’s passions, and then to direct them, is the art par excellence; the divine art of Marcus Aurelius and of Socrates.

Generally we only act in order to content our desires; our desires arise from our sensations, and among a hundred million individuals, their senses are neither the same, nor with the same connections: that is to say, that in the whole

158 (G): We have only spoken of the passions that are harmful to society or the individual: those which are beneficial rarely have need of moderation.

world, there are perhaps not two men who see, taste, smell, touch and hear in the same proportions among their five senses159. How we must differ in opinions, and how these opinions must be divergent from the common center, which is the truth! When we are gathered in a large number in order to deliberate on a single thing, it would be necessary, so to speak, for the senses of each one of us to be analyzed inadvance; it would be necessary for us to know that these arecompetent when it is a matter of seeing distinctly, that these others hear properly, that these others have a fine sense of touch in the physical and the moral, so that we maybe sure that everyone is in his place, and deals with the matter that he understands! But, no, all pretend to be equally skilled for deciding everything; and, what is the most singular, is that we almost always have pretentions contrary to our faculties of sense. It is he whose hearing is false that wants to decide in music, he who is cross-eyedor myopic who talks of painting, and he whose senses are in rivalry with each other who wants to make everyone agree160. How can we escape from this labyrinth? How to recognize thatis but one in each thing? Let us begin, then, by moderating our pretentions, at least so that each does not tell us on which point they are connected with us, and so that we recognize the one who is the most skilled in deciding. It isespecially in granting this preponderance of opinion to a man who is recognized, that we force him to observe himself:we want to carry the day with force regarding that which they are arguing with us about; but general confidence frightens the wise man, and forces him to withdrawal and moderation in the judgment that we expect from him. 159 T(G): he senses of man are more in agreement with each other than for the animals, where one of the five senses predominates over the four others; but, inspite of this observation, that I have made in my Essays on music, vol. II, p. 36, Idid not that man’s sense were in a perfect connection; even less that the sensesof one man were in perfect connection with those of another. The five sense of man are more in accord, more in equilibrium than those of any animal; this is what gives him an intelligence superior to that of anything which breathes. 160 (G): Stupidity is, I think, a conflict among the five senses. One sense, too strong, too exquisite, gives a dominant passion; it makes the other senses negative.

Moderation is equally necessary in joy or sadness, in pleasure or pain, in pleasure or pain, in good and in bad events, in health as in sickness. Joy is foolish, puerile, if it is not restrained; and sadness is pusillanimous. I saythis both regarding the good and bad events that result fromour diverse operations. It is in our best state of health, where our passions are flourishing and expansive, that we have need of moderation; and it is in that of disease that we should reassemble the little strength which remains to usin order to bear with patience the ill that is pressing us. The man who is too petulant in good health, the man too demolished when he is suffering, are equally distant from the desirable goal. — How, you will say, to be moderate in the situations of the soul that you have just gone through, and how to repress the instinct of nature without lying to oneself? – like certain Greek stoics, to say, while suffering sharp pangs of colic, turning pale with its grip: No, I am not suffering at all. This is certainly lying. — It is not this that we are asking: but to bear honest witness to one’s pleasure or pains without letting oneself be vanquished by them; to likewise be superior to good and bad events – this is where one finds true moderation. A philosopher said: Pleasure is a sorrow which has begun. A profoundlyfelt observation, as far I as am concerned. Yes, pleasure ata degree higher than its essence allows, becomes pain, whether through the regrets that it brings with it, whether because the principle of irritability is the same. A sensation of pleasure that is overly prolonged must degenerate into pain, just as a sound that is held too long becomes insupportable to the ear. In addition, nature has ordered things well in endowing us with organs that are always weak in comparison the desires that we form. According to our weak construction, our great pleasures are short, as are our great sorrows. If the pleasure is prolonged, it becomes sorrow; if this latter continues to increase, it kills. Thus, it is only moderation in pleasuresthat is fitting for us. The weak man, always desiring that which is beyond that which nature gives him as inheritance,

is an unreasonable being, if he does moderate his desires like the able squire retains underneath him the fiery animalwho wants to abandon himself to his ardor.

In all the cases which we have just reported, moderation rectifies the excesses, binds us once more at thelimits of reason, balances us, so to speak, between good andevil, in taking from us the worst aspects of all the ills, satiety in pleasure, and despair in sorrow. It is this same moderation that leads us to the highest degree of wisdom. Know thyself was written on the Temple at Delphi; this is the axiom the most recommended by the ancient philosophers, and the moderate man who knows himself the best. In the time of our revolutionary terror, moderation was a crime; and we never saw more criminal men. It is thus the lively pleasuresand the overwhelming pains for which, without doing too muchviolence to nature, we should repress the excesses through moderation. I think that pleasures are easier to bear with moderation than pains; love for ourselves makes us view as well-deserved justice everything happy that happens to us; to appear above one’s good successes in order to seem to deserve them, and even to let it be through that we merit even greater success, is a well-known ruse, even for mediocre men; but they always reveal themselves when they suffer. Let us distinguish, nevertheless, physical or moral pleasures from physical or moral pains. In general, we do not blush at all at manifesting our physical pleasures, to the extent that they are decent; but we blush more to bear witness to our moral pains. On the contrary, we hid our moral pleasures under a sort of boasting, and we ostentatiously display our strength in bearing our physical pains.

It is, I say once more, in the excesses of pleasure andpain that the moral fiber of the soul is revealed; it is especially in reverses that one must see what a man is. If we have only seen him surrounded by prosperity, always favored by fortune, always fortified by the fever of his successes, we do not really know him. He has his moments of

worry, distress, certainly; but he has subjugated opinion tosuch an extent; his fortune imposes in such a way on all those who surround him, that he reads in every eye that he sees, in everyone’s face, the respect that we have for him, and how far we are from thinking we should feel sorry for him. This certainty adds considerably to his strength, and makes him overcome physical and moral pains, especially while facing the public, with an heroic courage; he flies tocombat as we run to balls, to spectacles; he braves every peril, braves death a hundred times, and nevertheless he still is not judged. Finally, fortune no longer favors him, or, to put it another way, his resources are exhausted, and let his fortune escape; like a cloud of gold that was surrounding him, opinion is dissipated, and the man then appears with his weaknesses: it is in this moment, it is after this fever, this delirium, that we must see him: if hegives in to oppressive fate, his glory was only usurped. Butif, calm, tranquil, he calculates the degrees of the storm without braving it; if, with sang-froid, he sees that of hishappy rival shine; if, in human vicissitudes, he only sees the moving dial, pushed by the finger of destiny; if he gives in without weakness; if moderation never abandons him….let us honor such a man, and let us not feel sorry for him; he is greater than he was in the days of his splendor. If only I could, in the distance, see him walking by himselfin his retreat, in his meadow, smiling while contemplating aflower! Yes, great man, I would tell him, you have lost nothing of your glory; you formerly saw the future in the present, your soul was prepared; may this future, become thepresent, show you, in another future, the immortal crown of which you are worthy. On your tomb grown cold, the crowd will warm itself in remembering your moderation and your virtues, which will serve as examples for future races.

Cold characters are naturally moderate; true moderationis that which triumphs over its excited penchants, even (as we will show) so that the man of truth knows ruses and cunning in order to scorn them.

Chapter 4. How and why Jean-Jacques was that which he was in his mores

After having given La Fontaine, in the dialogue closing the previous chapter, moral qualities which show him to be, through his sweet moderation, more social than Rousseau, it isappropriate to cast a glance at the circumstances which rendered the latter the unhappiest of beings, although he was the best of men. His existence is still a problem to be resolved; but he is an astonishing man, a god in the eyes ofsome; a madman, a monster in the eyes of others. These contradictions, prolonged for such a long time, prove that we have not yet analyzed his character.

Let us take Jean-Jacques from his cradle to his tomb; we will note some errors mixed with the impulses of the virtue that was natural to him; we will always seem him to be good when he is free, unhappy, defiant when he is constrained. Let us not forget, further, that we did not forgive him for the least defect: we love to recall the weaknesses that belonged to a great man, in order to console us for our own faults.

A child almost abandoned to his own devices, his faultsare those of every still newborn being, who, happy with his physical and moral liberty, resists the will of others in order to follow his natural penchants.

Knowing how one must go about correcting the faults of childhood is a grand question; faults that nature inspires, and which social mores oblige us to repress. This is the moral germ of the entire life of man that is there; this is the egg from which we will see the most intelligent being ofnature hatch, if truth guides him, or which will rot if liessubjugate him. Must we constantly tell the child, this is not good, or must we let him act? — I think that words are useless at this age; I think that it is the time to act without speaking, so that the impression takes root. The

action of a thing is likewise its unity; it is attenuated inall its respects if we describe it. Explanations are too vague, too weak against instinct, he does not understand them; if he obeys without understanding, you are forming a slave. The child wants, I do not want, and I act as a consequence. He weeps; what does it matter to me? He meets achild who is weaker than he is, dominate him in turn, and takes the cake that he has in his hand; what will I do, I, who am present? I take it from him as well; he begs me to give it to him, a useless effort, no more pity for him than he had for his little comrade. — This is, you will say, living as if in the woods, it is the law of the strongest that reigns here. Is there another in nature? Is there another in society, if moral laws and reason do not constrain us? And can childhood be subjected to the law, being deprived of reason? But the child being, through his weakness, forced to remain where he is, feeling at each moment his dependence on others, the moment of reflection finally, tired of being constrained by the stronger, he gives in to those weaker than he so that they give into himself; then he voluntarily gives half of his breakfast, and I give him ample recompense, without explanations, they are useless; the child knows as much as we do in such a case.

Before judgment is formed, the word is a source of errors: let us speak little, let us act well; thus we will inculcate in children the idea of truth and justice, along with a horror of injustice and lying. 161. Do we often see fine chatter accompany fine actions? No: it seems that oneis only at the expense of the other. Chicanery is talkative at trials; metaphysics is as well in the sciences – it makesuse of a thousand metaphors; truth has but a rapid movement,its action is as simple as it is; and the more one needs proofs to attest to it, the more doubtful it is.

The young Rousseau, mistreated by his masters in clock making, fled his fatherland, having nothing, but enjoying 161 (G): All these ideas are those of Rousseau himself.

the eminent happiness that gives his age the feeling of existence. On his route, a woman welcomed him with goodness;she soon became the idol of his heart; and all women (whom he idolized during his entire life), owe to Madame de Varens the profound love that he preserved for them. Another amiable woman would have created the same effect on him, certainly, but Madame de Varens had the honor of unsealing his eyes. Wandering from town to town, sometimes musician, sometimes poet or diplomat, it is thus that the man who has received extended faculties from nature wishes to experienceall of them before setting down162.

In Paris he makes connections with people of letters, he sees grand society, where everything is factitious, even hate; his fiery pen retraces the labyrinth, and through his eloquence, he becomes the rival of his masters, whom he spares no more than he does the rest of men. Overwhelmed by enemies produced by his successes163; more overwhelmed by those created for him by his imagination, thinking to be able to struggle against all, he isolates himself and imagines that at a few leagues from Paris, strong in his principles and his conscience, he can brave the storm. Wanting to flee from men, and not being able, nevertheless, to live or exercise his talents without connections with society, he has only an equivocal existence; he experiences the pangs produced by half-measures; he regrets honest men and especially amiable women: one of the latter appears at his hermitage, he loses his head, and the old man becomes anadolescent.

Solitude is the refuge of philosophy; but how dangerous162 (G): We should have noted that Rousseau, sublime in morality, is not dull in any genre of literature; that he is melodious in his music, the chief merit of the musician, and absolutely the same as that of the poet who makes verses that we remember and that we love to repeat, such as those by Racine, by Delille, la Fontaine and Lebrun.163 (G): Marmontel said to me one day: “You are very widely spread out through theworld where they love your talents; think in advance about what means you will use to withdraw from the world without making enemies for yourself: it is something that is quite difficult!”

it is to excited imaginations! I have always believed that this superannuated passion had hastened, by several lustra, the end of Rousseau’s existence. Overwhelmed by infirmities anddistress, he writes his life, where some instance of lively pleasure only serve to darken further the long tissue of hisunhappiness. In this sentimental and eloquent writing, qualities found joined in almost all his productions, he exaggerates his wrongs and those of the persons who were linked with the events of his life: If only he had died without his Confession a woman said agreeably, he would be more worthy of esteem. Such is the imagination of man; in solitude, it amplifies everything, sees nothing in its natural dimensions: if Rousseau had written his life under the eyes of some friends and of Madame de Varens, he would not have thought himself so culpable, and would not have needed to accuse others in order to show the origin of his weaknesses.How many times, when by ourselves, do we not imagine ourselves having enemies who conspire against our happiness?However, having left our retreat, forced to find ourselves with them, a single word, a simple gracious smile that they address to us, suffice to overturn the monstrous scaffold built by our excited imagination, and to reconcile ourselveswith ourselves, more still than with them. It is in solitude, in general, and according to the character of man,that misanthropy, or philosophy par excellence, arises. All beings endowed with amour-propre, I mean to say, with an amour-propre dominating the other passions, and it is nineteen twentieths of men who are this way, all of these, Isay, whom amour-propre dominates, easily become atrabiliary there, and the simple, peaceful man, supported by good principles, simple, there becomes a philosopher, properly said. What to think of authors whose existence, in general, is based on the contentment of amour-propre? It is there, itis solitude that their judgment is altered; it is there that, too occupied with their thoughts, they too strictly judge others, and themselves with too much advantage; it is there that, except for their old favorite, all the authors speak of each other with too little consideration; they agree on their reciprocal merit; but a hundred defects

always tarnish it. If we only know estimable authors throughwhat they say of each other, how poorly we would know them! The studious man needs solitude, but he needs it to be lively; he needs to be alone in the middle of the world; then the pure of the country gives healthy judgment; it is then we read well, that we are not distracted by anything, that we return from one’s precipitated judgments, and that we reject the book often suggested by the journals. Montaigne was fine, in his philosophical retreat; a chateau, and friends surrounded it. Buffon was likewise in his tower at Montbard. Voltaire at Ferney, in the midst of his court, was fine as well: his office for study was impenetrable whenhe ordered it. Rousseau was perfectly fine in the pavilion of the duke of Montmorency: read what he himself says about it in his Confessions, you will be persuaded.

Rousseau was the most profound thinker who has ever existed, perhaps; such is, in general, the character of the Genevan, he makes the tour of his city in focusing on a single subject; and the Parisian, in his imagination, travels the four quarters of the globe in a promenade.

We have not imposed on ourselves the right to judge thetalents of Rousseau, they belong to the world; but in the nineteenth century, his writings will be examined more closely than they have yet been, because in the future metaphysics, whatever subject it may deal with, will no longer be adopted as blindly as it was, and as it still is adopted, although much less so than formerly. We will see the time come when they will analyze the analyzers. We have read, studied Locke, Condillac, and that which there is that is metaphysical in the works of Rousseau, with a sort of respect that one should not grant to anything issuing from mortal heads before it its perfectly understood. If onesubtracted from the admirers of metaphysics those who do notclearly understand everything they pretend to admire in order to appear more skilled than we, few would remain, let us agree in good faith. I would love them to give a prize tothe one who would explain, in clear and precise terms, such

and such pages in such and such works, or someone who would show the void, the vague and the absurd. We have arrived at a time where all duplicity is a crime; all which is true should be felt, I am not saying by everyone, but a number ofpersons educated in each subject of the sciences or the arts. Let us accept the true as true, the doubtful as doubtful, and thus we will be greater than in wanting to feel everything, resolve everything, and affirm everything. To believe before understanding is unworthy of man; this is reason enslaved. My ignorance of it is perhaps the reason; but when I read and reread some metaphysical proposition without clearly understanding the sense of the things, I cry: O Fénélon, Montaigne, Rousseau, Plutarch, it is not thus thatI leave you!

Let us summarize. Rousseau, stoic and proud, cast into a world for which he was not made, and which constantly opposed him, in everything the opposite of the men whom he frequented, was so out of place in Paris under the reigns ofthe last two kings that he would have been in his true placeamong the Spartans. A beautiful diamond, poorly mounted, poorly accompanied, the use of which is in no way appropriate to the one who uses it, cannot be appreciated bythose who see it; they see it without recognizing it; this is a precious stone, say some; no, it is a fake, say others.Thus the man who is in advance of age through his enlightenment, is poorly judged by his contemporaries, because, judging according to themselves, they cannot appreciate him; because, between their judgments and his, there are no true connections by which they can agree: finally, because his judges are too weak to be able to support the weight of the balance which bears such a man.

Chapter 5. On alterations in our character.

Although the man of truth knows, in order to reject

them, the tortuous routes of the lie; although his moral principles are, so to speak, based on his character, and thetruth is in all matters the object of his favorite cult, is he the same, is he one on every occasion? Does the semblancenever have a role in his social proceedings? According to his interests, his passions, the accepted social conventions, do we not observe in him a change of manners, of facial expression, of various transitions in the inflections of his voice, depending on the individual to whom he is speaking? Yes, we observe in him all that I have just said, and he can be other without being false, without lying to his conscience, because he loves or does not love at all; considers or scorns; knows or does not know at all those that meets daily on his way. The man of all estates would only be a moral automaton, from God to his last creation, he had only one tone, one manner of communicating with the beings endowed with more or less intelligence. Theysay that the horse belonging to the hero is proud to bear him. Dogs, we see each day, bark at the poor in rags; how would man refuse all the various and multiplex sensations that his privileged being receives? We smile with pleasure, it is true, in seeing the good philosopher bow as deeply to the peasant oaf as to the leading magistrate of the canton; but we smile at this impropriety. We love him, this good philosopher; but we think that, absorbed in his ideas, he is, in some way, absent, or that he is not there for us; that he does not exactly render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. If you see children speaking pertly to their parents, valets to their masters, men to their God, doyou not believe that disorder reigns in the world? There cannot be a tribunal which decides regarding with which toneone must speak to such and such a man: it is up to us to take a tone so just that one cannot take offense; it is up to us to take a tone that makes us friends instead of enemies. We earn more with this moral coin than that money

that we run after; and the first type costs nothing more than a little attention and benevolence. This propriety, where everyone is judge in his own case, is more delicate than that of material goods. In our entirely conventional world, we exist more from vain glory than from nutritive substances: we eat more to live than we live to eat.

There can no more exist an agrarian law for proceedings

than for the productions of the earth, or for gold, which represents them all. There was a time in France where we seemed to want all goods to be held in common among all: what madness! I recall a comedy of circumstance that was played at one of our great theaters during the flagrante delictoof the revolution; we noted this pleasant scene. Two citizen of Paris were arguing, while they emptied a bottle, about community of goods; the one who argued that the agrarian law was impractical, dared, while continuing tochat, and several times in a row, to drink down the wine of his comrade after having swallowed his one.— “What the devilare you doing, then?” the other said to him: “you are drinking both your share and mine!— “And so you see”, replied the first, “that there are shares and shares, or that you must be battling at every moment.”

This tribunal which I have just mentioned, where we ourselves judge each other, and too often to our own advantage, is the most complicated, the most inextricable machine that there is in the world. What ruses, what tones,what semblances, what expressions they dare, they put forward in order find the tone that they can adopt with us! But there is only one, that of the truth. You are rich, I ampoor – honor me if I am a man of good. If I ask you a favor,it falls to me to take a suppliant tone without baseness. You think you are more knowledgeable, more important than weare in this world; allow the world to decide this, or allow me to accord you deference and respect on my own. It is onlynull beings who take tones to which there is no response. Truly, when one is nothing by oneself, one wants to have it

believed that one is something; this is where you have the lying model from which come pedantic or evaporated manners; impertinence and impudence. Having worked in secret, puffy, gnawed by pride, the ignorant man has the effrontery to try to gain the level of the educated men, who, all things considered, imposes on him. A fine escapade! In a moment, heshows that he is only a sot, even if he were to have a hundred thousand livres of income. In order to summarize this part of our chapter, let us boldly say, then, that those who take revolting tones, are, certainly, impotent in some manner, and that they seek to conceal their infirmity. Taking a tone superior to theirs is proudness, is justice toward an aggressor. But the world would be too serious if, daughters or women, young or old, we were all wise and restrained; a little bit of the comic is necessary to brighten up the scene of the world. In noting how much pleasure often seduces us at the cost of virtue, one would say that we are all marred by some grains of immortality. Yes, one prefers those that one loves to those whom one esteems, although one does not esteem all those that one loves. Let us be indulgent, then, towards the others; let uspermit youth its gaiety, folly, frankness, which are naturalto its inexperience and flightiness. Is there anything as pleasant as seeing youth decide on everything before knowinganything? Chattering, joking, pirouetting, deciding on everything with no intent of harming anyone, forgetting in the same moment all that it has just said and done, this is the distinctive character of youth. Is there anything as gayas seeing women almost nude in Paris, because it was hot in Athens? Than seeing girls or boys cut their hair rasibus, because the poor émigrés from abroad, and the ruined rentiers from within, have lost their hair through distress,or have cut them for reasons of thrift? Than wearing crippled outfits, because they bought them that way by chance at the broker? Than wearing great cravats going all the way to their nose, because those unfortunates of the revolution, having no money for a shave, wore them thus? Than covering oneself with pants that go up above their chest, because some unhappy ones dress themselves from the

cast-offs of some six-foot tall grenadier…? What a mixture of folly, comic amiability, and inconsequence, for which the cause is nevertheless so serious! O Molière, if youlived among us once more, what fine comedies you would stillmake in depicting our mores! It is up to us, who have been ripened by time, whom good nature has caused to love wisdom and moderation, because we have few expenses to make, it is up to us to show youth the qualities that it is lacking, in tacitly consoling ourselves for our forced economies. If onehad to say which is the most ridiculous, a young sage, or a crazy old man, it would, I think, be difficult to decide. At each period of live, nature tells us what we should be. It is the frequenting, the mixture of young with old, sick with well, sad with gay, mad with wise, rogues with honest folk, which produces the sort of moral pot-pourri moral which affects us. In following good examples, let us imitatenothing that is not fitting for us164; like the ignorant sculptor, let us not put a Lappish nose on the face of Cleopatra; let us be original and mediocre rather than bad copies, if we want to count for something. Truth is only one, but each thing has its own truth fitting for its nature. Adanson has managed to count, to distinguish twenty-four thousand historical pictures of the configuration of animate and inanimate beings. All these individual certainlyhave some affinities among them, but not one is the same as any of the others taken separately. Moral truths, as much aspossible more diverse than natural individuals 165, have nonetheless a unique and necessary type, I mean, the concordance between men living under a single heaven and thesame laws. We will say once more, the more man is true, the closer he approaches perfection. If one objects that disordered, exaggerated passions are also in nature, we willanswer that it teaches us, that it allows us to reject violation through physical force, after which we can still have recourse to that of the laws. There is nothing, says

164 (G): See the chapter On the force of example165 (G): See the chapter On truths relative to the various positions of man.

Plato, which is as pleasing as the truth, whether one hears it said by others, or whether one says it oneself. To which the Spectator adds: It is for this reason that one sees no company that is as agreeable as that of the man with integrity, who listens without any plan of treason, and who speaks without any plan of deception. Let us add that no semblance is in its own manner; he acts according to an intimate belief. If he is deceived, it is that we have deceived him, and it is with the same candor that he holds to his principle or agrees to his errors.

Chapter 6. On pretenses.

Although in themselves, pretenses are lies, I

distinguish them from the latter, since they are often errors of our imagination or of our amour-propre. One believes that one is touching that which is still far from one, and which one will perhaps never reach. One has dreamed, during the night, that one was an important man; the vapors of this dream not yet being dissipated, it is with a firmer, more majestically comic step that one makes one’s first turns around one’s chamber. Poor humanity! It isfrom errors and semblances that you are nourished; and when these statuses are dissipated, it is through still other illusions that you console yourself.

To judge ourselves, it is necessary for us to constantly transport ourselves into others, and then the truth strikes us with more conviction166; semblances in another disgust us sooner, no matter how well managed they may be, and we thus learn to be disgusted by them in ourselves. The honest and true man scorns boasting; but the cunning scoundrel, the low flatterer, pretend to believe in the semblances of their dupes; they certainly see that the quidam doubles his income, his merit, and his power; but even should have only the twentieth of what he pretends to have, they try to profit by it. One would not dare to suppose that that the man of truth knows good and evil equally deeply; he know the good through principles, he has grasped all its exterior signs, and it is through signs opposite to those that he has been practicing for a long time that he unveils cunning; then he avoids the deceiver for ever. How cowardly one needs to be to abuse the trust ofthe man of good, who easily lets himself be deceived once! It is only a soul dead in crime that can thus attacking living probity. I will only answer that women have, as much as we do, the strength to renounce their natural subtlety through principles; it is our fault; we render them devious 166 (G): In another chapter, I will return to this subject.

through warring with them, whether in love, whether in opposing our too material forces to the weakness of their organization. But it is with such art, grace and charm that they deceive us; they have such consideration for us when weare subjugated that (at least) beaten and happy, we must certainly thank them again.

The habit that we have in France of attaching too much importance to little things, and of treating grand affairs lightly, would only show that we are governed by women. Before our actions and their final results167 decide what we really are, it is through their discourses that we can judgewhether a man is sincere, whether he disguises nothing, whether he frankly presents himself as that which he is. It is, further, through the uselessness of causing great words,the names of great personages to enter familiar conversation, that we perceive, whatever subtlety that they include in this, if they want to surprise us. The thread that leads a flattering word to us is sometimes to fine thatwe do not perceive it; it is our amour-propre that has grasped it as if on the fly.

In our téte-à-téte with those who are subject to us, we caress ourselves with a sweet complacency that I would not have the courage to censure. We are aware of our weakness, but it pleases us, consoles us; much is need for us to dare to risk the same words before a large group: an ironic murmur would be heard immediately, and we would remain confused. When we are one against all, we are always weak; we must march straight then, or brave opinion through an effrontery that soon becomes unsupportable. Well, on all occasions, the impostor, nourished with pretenses, is likewise one against all; he can be sure of never escaping boos, were it not that, for half his life, he has only God as his witness. — One must, you will say, inspire trust whenone is not known; one must sometimes allow a compare to speak to whom one says, you flatter me, so that he will give167 (G): See the chapter That one can only judge men by the results of their conduct.

more support. No, all these old tricks, if they announced truths, only serve to dupe the weak while awakening the mistrust of educated men. —If, you will say further, we excluded all useless discourse from conversation, it would often languish. —Agree, but let it languish, rather than animating it on our account. Nothing is as painful in society as seeing an imposing character, although he pretends not to be so, who receives all the incense that we bestow on him, and who allows himself to shine all alone. Let us remark that he with whom we are considerably occupiedcreates as much pleasure in leaving as when we close the curtains before the overly bright sun. it is only then that good folk smile while rubbing their hands; that they embraceeach other, and ask for some refreshment; it is only then that the happiness of intimacy begins.

Sometimes, in a little intimate committee, we seem to agree to make each other happy through reciprocal caresses; praise flits about then, like the balloon in the air that everyone bats back and forth: we lower ourselves for a moment in order to elevate the one that we are playing with,and in order to be elevated in turn: this is the game of see-saw. Poor humanity, you relieve yourself thus for your secret pains! We leave happy with each other, we promise to meet again, and we never fail to do so.

Let us not concern ourselves with innocent semblances, such as those that we notice when we walk before a mirror. The furtive glances, of different sorts, that we make: semblances of moving a lock of hair, adjusting one’s cravat,of removing one’s powder…. It is clear that, from the ugliest of men to the most handsome, almost all go there to say good morning to their amiable person.

We do well to speak unkindly to the impudent man who imagines he can achieve everything through cunning and audacity. In Paris, more than elsewhere, this is the maxim that the semi-scholars and semi-sots bring from the provinces; but they only shine for a few days and fall back

into their abject sphere. A man, known for having despoiled the tax collector,

dared to speak of his riches with effrontery; he was interrupted by this fulminating question: Monsieur, does one inherit from those who are hanged? Must we still allow this scoundrel the right to kill his man after having stolen fromthe State? If some strong souls did not have the courage to stand up to the audacity of the rogues, we would be used by the rabble.

All semblances which redound to our profit are suspect in the eyes of others. To pretend to have forgotten the least service rendered, the least sum loaned in a time of scarcity, is a game for which the lender is not the dupe. When, after having been poor, one has ten thousand livres ofincome, one blushes at having to pay back an écu that one earlier borrowed in order to dine. I have on various occasions received some gifts to quit old debts that were not acknowledged, and for which the debtor had as good a recollection as i. Why force me to this recognition? Why this detour, this pretense, when it would have been so nobleto say: I never forgot the importance of the service you did me in lending me a small sum; in pretending not to remember it, you have doubled the price of it for me, allow me to quit myself of this debt. Sometimes we also make useof pretense in order to address some immorality; we pretend,for example, not to know that we are speaking to the interested party, in order to give him a lesson indirectly. In this case, if simply a desire for improving mores causes us to act, dissimulation would perhaps be permitted; but if some particular vengeance provokes the censor, then his personal interest destroys the merit of having the public good in mind: the bad absorbs the good. In general, double-edged blades are almost always suspect weapons in the hands of men.

I remember, on this subject, an almost tragic scene, which took place in a society. We were discoursing on the happiness, so rare, of conjugal union. Then a woman, after

having named the hero and the heroine, related, in the greatest detail, how she came to enjoy the aspect of the happiness of the two spouses. Their reciprocal caresses, those they bestowed on their child, their friendly use of “tu”, their amorous glances, nothing was omitted in this seductive, but perfidious tableau; for the spouse of whom she was speaking had been living for a long time with a woman who was present for this narration. She made vain efforts to conceal her annoyance; the movement of her nerves, her convulsive mouth, everything revealed this; the unhappy woman scarcely had the strength to flee, to avoid the catastrophe of fainting.

Let summarize by also taking a general look at pretenses of various genres. First, I will observe that to pretend to have whatever quality is to make the confession, quite formal, that we desire this quality, but that we do not possess it. If it is a useful quality, the pretense of possessing it can be seen as a laudable emulation to reach this end. I would abstain, for example, from contradicting the young man who would affect to possess the dominion over his yet untamed senses. Pulsate et aperietur vobis, says scripture.Just as prayer, vows addressed to heaven are impulses which,often repeated, lead us to the desired goal; likewise, the pretense of being that which is not yet, is a very laudable active desire, when it is a question of good; this is a virtuous inclination, although unconfirmed, that man can allow himself, it seems to me, like the hope of being reunited with his God in a future life.

In actions of little or no consequence, pretense is boastfulness; it shows that the one who uses it has few principles. In actions which are important to mores, pretense is criminal.

From their birth to their death, the existence of girlsand women seems to be only a long pretense. From the tenderest age, the little girl plays at being a mother: pretense of being big, beautiful, a lover; pretense of

having everything that she sees in the women of twenty yearsof age; it is that her childhood passes. At fifteen, more concealed pretenses arrive: the pretense of not looking for that which one envies the most; the pretense of bitterly critiquing the handsome young man à la mode, to oblige thoseto whom one speaks of taking their side, to make the eulogium that one does not dare to do for oneself, and that one hears with palpitations, quite visible for those who know how to observe women. “Hurry up and get angry, I said to one of them, unless you want me to think that you are in love with him.”

At forty, the stigmata of the prime of life, not yet erased, battle with maturity; it dominates the features and the attitude of the body, so that we wish to conceal it. Alas, the meeting point of these ages is scarcely longer or more certain that the good weather after the wind has changed; it is a spring flower, which we desire much longer than we possess it. We only not two passions that are natural and true in woman: maternal love, which is her sublime merit, and love, generator of the sweetest sentimens, both father and mother of amour-propre and of coquetry.

Such are pretenses, all born from society and conflict that reigns between men all wanting the same things at the same time. Man, as a constitutive part of nature, and subject to the same laws, should be, like her, irrefragable in his immense variety. There are no pretenses in nature; everything is, because it is and should be thus. It is, thus, the desire of possessing alone that which belongs to all, which causes us to dissimulate, and commits us to appearing that which we are not. Let us oppose two primordial virtues to these unconsidered subterfuges. It is through good that we correct evil; it is through opposites that we neutralize in morality, as in chemical operations.

Chapter 7Researches on the two virtues contrary to dissimulation and to semblances

There are one hundred baleful results that sufficientlytell us that everything that is fallacious in our conduct ends with a catastrophe in which the least disagreement means losing the trust of our peers.

Trust is the freest of our sentiments: in whatever way that we take it, after ten minutes of conversation, we grantor refuse, tacitly and in spite of ourselves, our trust on one who provokes it; and even when it seems indecisive between pro and contra, good and bad, its equilibrium is never perfect. It is only the souls that are too good who imagine to themselves that through flattery they inspire trust; we love those who love us, but we want this love to be the fruit of an appreciated esteem. Between people of talent, flattering in order to be flattered is the business of mediocrity. In the commerce of the world, between two flatterers, there is often a dupe and a scoundrel.

There are also felicitous outcomes which cause us to favor those who report them; such are the two virtues which we will concern ourselves with. We all, as many as we are, believe them to be so indispensable that, in order to inspire confidence, we pretend, more or less, to achieve them. Without them, man remains imperfect, whatever his estate may be. On the throne, he is miserly; rich, he is worthy of scorn; poor and ignorant, he rolls in the mud; a philosopher, he is only a usurper of this sublime title; possessor of a great talent, he lacks the luster which embellishes the talent and the artist; and if man was susceptible to this, if one virtue did not necessarily causethe exclusion of another, then, possessor of all the virtuesjoined together, he would lack the complement which leaves much to be desired; I say further, which spoils all the qualities of the first order. On the contrary, endowed with these two primordial virtues, the mediocre man, by right of nature, the immoral, still impose consideration. Joined with

high qualities, these two complementary virtues elevate his being to the final point of perfection to which his nature can attain. Yes, without them he is suspect; for if he is devout, he can be little indulgent towards others; if he is open, he can be hard; if he is poor, he can be a flatterer; if he is rich, he can be arrogant, pitiless. Finally, the first of these two virtues, of these two results, is generosity.

The man who is generous, without prodigality, gives us the final result, the result par excellence of the human heart; giving is his greatest joy; and one accepts his giftswithout blushing. This man, certainly, has many friends; mayhe know how to choose them; and, like God, the giver of the good things of this world, may he enjoy the good that he does, may he be praised, blessed by every mouth, and may he end his sweet life amidst the caresses of appreciation.

The possessor of great riches is a judged man, whatevermay be his talents, his virtues, if he does not buy back through his generosity the species of immortality attached to his estate. — There are, you will say, lucrative estates to which fortune is attached, and in which one misses ones’ goal if one does not enrich oneself; I agree. But let generosity be the inheritance of those favored by Plutus; let their relatives, their friends, let none of those who have contributed to their elevation remain in indigence, without which the rich man is the usurper of his superfluity. Publicconscience is so severe with regard to this article, that something is lacking for greatest dead man, if he was endowed with riches. If, in reading the history of his life,if, after having made the enumeration of his virtues, one arrives at this phrase: He possessed an immense fortune; then it seems that all his virtues are tarnished; one scarcely pardons him for having been rich through right of heredity.

Cast your eyes on the celebrated man, whatever may be the state of his fortune, if he is blotted by a grain of avarice, our consideration for him is immediately

attenuated. Great men do well to value their life for little: for them especially, to die is to pass the sponge over a hundred little defects, leaving their reputation intact.

See the most beautiful, the most deserving of women; ifan overly nitpicking economy directs her actions, if she is never seized by impulses of generosity, her beauty has nothing about it that is celestial; she is as material as the gold that she is saving. In order to be truly beautiful,to transport our imagination toward the charms of her being,beauty must have a share of noble generosity. — Speaking thus, is not, you will say, inviting women to be thrifty. — No, certainly; I prefer them to be beloved lovers, than degraded servants. The separation between love and indifference begins with economy. For the rest, necessary and recommendable economy is not sordid – one can ennoble itlike all the virtues of abstinence. Nothing so noble, so grand as the philosopher quitting the court of kings, and returning, as he had come, poor, staff in hand, to his fatherland. Nothing wiser than a reasoned economy which announces to everyone the order of the day and of the day after. This verse of Silvain, speaking to his wife: Donne à la pauvreté, l'air d'une aisance honnête168,

was always applauded by the public.

Cast your eyes on the magnanimous warrior; if, after his victories, his fortune remains as it was, his glory is as brilliant as the star in the heavens. Turenne169, refusing a million offered to him by a city on the territory of whichhe had not planned to pass – is he not greater than after a victory? Sully170, returning to private life after a long

168 TN: Give to poverty the air of an honest ease.169 TN: Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne, 1611-1675.170 TN: Maximilien de Béthune, 1st Duke of Sully, Marquis of Rosny and Nogent, Count of Muret and Villebon, Viscount of Meaux, 1560-1641.

period as minister, and the friendship of the greatest of kings – did he not seal his sublime virtues? O heroes, o great men! The honor, the glory of my fatherland; within despotism you already practiced republican virtues.

For the man of a great merit, it seems that there is compensation between reputation and wealth; it is as if he is surrounded by a cloud of glory and a cloud of gold, between which he can choose, without he being able to attainboth of them equally: such is the law of opinion. For the rest, if there are moment in life where Jupiter envelops us with a shower of gold, let our generosity share it with thosewho have only glory without wealth; to thus exchange gold for the glory that one acquires through being generous is toprofit by the exchange.

It is not to cast disfavor on generosity if we say thatgamblers, and the Lais171 practice it voluntarily; immorality gains in practicing a virtue, without the virtue losing thereby. But opposites love to approach each other, and immoral beings are more constantly prodigal than generous. It is especially in the time of their harvest that they are thus; but see them when their passions are used up, then they are far from prodigality: it is in their irregular effervescence, it is to redeem as much as possible their immorality, that they show themselves to be generous.

Imagine that sublime character with which it pleases you to adorn the greatest of men; without generosity, all his virtues remain lukewarm; never was the interested being interesting in the eyes of his peers.

The reader is certainly in a rush to learn what, according to us, is the second virtue which can still contribute powerful to banishing dissimulation and semblances far from us. This is the dominion over the sixth sense; …..it is there that one finds all the strength of women. Nature, education tell them to resist this supreme 171 TN: Meretrices.

sense; to avoid man in order to be sought out, to flee him in order to be pursued, and to conceal her penchant from himin order to be adored. It is thus that they have made themselves the mistresses of men, and the queens of the world.

Let us note well here, that it is not a question of a simulated empire which leads to dissimulations, but of a true and reasoned empire. — Generally, you will say, the female sex is not less very concealed. — Also, the empire of the sixth senses is not a general virtue, but the most desirable, as it is the rarest of the social virtues, even among women. Those who are only usurpers of this empire are more false than men, but those who reign by right, are sincere, and our true sovereigns.

The moralist or the naturalist who first saw a separatesense in voluptuousness172, not only enriched the domain of the passions of man with another sense; but, through fixing our regards on this human fever, this source of all ills andall good, someday the best effects must result. This veritable box of Pandora will be more closely observed, and with more results than it ever has been, not only to preserve hope, which, according to the ancient fable, remained there, but in order to remedy the countless ills which issued from this fatal box. Yes, the sixth sense, better directed, could be an inexhaustible source of good and of pure pleasures173.

The abuse of the five original sense is certainly dangerous; but let us note that man never fully enjoys his five senses. Never is the music-lover equally passionate forpainting, and, in spite of himself, he devotes himself to one of the two arts. Never does a gourmand have a real passion beyond that of his gourmandise. Scent and touch are accessory senses, tactile qualities, which seem to serve as 172 (G): This is, I believe, Buffon.173 (G): See the chapter On the influence of love on mores.

conductors for the other senses. One smells before tasting; one touches in order to be sure that one sees well. Nevertheless, touch is implicitly a general sense which accompanies, which serves, so to speak, as supplement to theother senses.

1. Touch in order to touch. 2. Touch in order to taste. 3. Touch in order to hear.4. Touch in order to see.5. Touch in order to smell.

It is through contact that we feel, and to feel, here, means to make use of one’s senses.

But since the enjoyment of the five senses in equal strength is refused to us, and their agreement is always divergent and never reciprocal, let us leave poor humanity with the right to compensate itself for its obtuse or semi-obtuse senses through the full enjoyment of one, of two, or of three of his senses at most. It would be, moreover, in vain that one would stimulate man to make us of his weaker senses in preference to the strong; he takes his advantage where he finds it; one may force him to leave his cherished domain; he returns there by instinct. The study of the faculties of man is none other than that of the exercise of his favorite sense, or of his senses which have supremacy over the others. When we see a poor edifice, we feel like saying to the architect who constructed it: Do something else that you are good at; for you will be good at something else, although you are a poor architect.

There is thus little danger that man does not serve forone of his original senses, since he only needs to change subject in order to be better; but the sixth sense, that forwhich the five senses work without ceasing, that for which they seem to be tributary; the goal, the final result of man’s desires; the one which, consequently, has the greatestinfluence on his morality; the sense which, so to speak,

reunites all the senses, since it has the faculty of openingthe human intellect, and of unsealing the senses which preceded it ...; the sixth sense should be studied, analyzed, known physically and morally so that its moral labyrinth will cease to be as dangerous to humanity as it has been, and as it is. The shadows of the sixth sense are only to be dreaded in perspective; let us approach it, let us descend, let us pierce its abyss; this is a mythology of the senses which our imagination has rendered as fabulous asthose of the pagan gods.

Never can man be happy but under the dominion of reason. Moral attractions should disappear with the physicalattractions of older times. Once you are educated, man, credulous and dangerous in your lonely ignorance, the tomb into which you wish to fall collapses; die, but be no longerthe victim of error. Do not accuse public morality of not having warned you, put up with your fact, since, enlightenedregarding the most dangerous abuse of your senses, you pretend to not know, and you no longer are ignoriant that feeling and enjoying without limits is to die. You know now that the sense toward which mortals’ vows are directed should be the most respected dogma, since in it resides public happiness or unhappiness.

But this is enough of general and abstract discussion of the sixth sense. It is more directly; it is to man himself that we now address ourselves. Man! If you wish to be strong in health, in virtues, talents, and consideration,be the master of the sixth sense. Direct your tyrannical voluptuousness, direct it without challenging it. If you want to be deprived of all the advantages of your being; if you want to be feeble, ignoble, without virtue, without talents, and the dregs of society, abandon yourself to the sixth senses; weep, moan at the feet of she who feels nothing, and never will feel anything for you; who disdains you, because you only bring her a feeble heart, slave to itspenchants; who will roll you in the mud, just as the proud horse who throws the unskilled squire who thinks to tame

him; and be certain to only gather, in the midst of your excess, the shame, the opprobrium of your weaknesses, unhappiness, and despair.

Chapter 8. On the force of example.

Let us not doubt that generosity, implacable enemy of

avarice, always crapulous; that our dominion over the sixth sense does not distance from us the greater part of the semblances that are unworthy of the estimable man. The generous being has no need of subterfuges; his actions speak. He who governs the sixth sense has tamed his most cruel enemy, and has no longer has much to conceal in the commerce of life. It falls to men who are eminent in fortune, in knowledge, to give the example for these two virtues, admired everywhere. — The philosopher, you will say, is rarely in a state to be generous. — He possesses all, since wisdom is his inheritance; and his good examples are priceless treasures.

Did Rousseau wish to distinguish himself from the men ofhis century by adopting mores contrary to those handed down?No; he carried within himself a germ different from that of the others, which his early republican education had developed in part, and which no prejudices could destroy. If he had been born in a monarchy, the education of his childhood, the force of example, would, to some extent, havesoftened his stoic nature; we would have found in his writings some traces of that constraint that we observe in those of the best writers who are his contemporaries and ours, up until the period of the revolution. But, less than any other was he able to overcome his true way of thinking, because his energy was equal to his sensibility; his love for truth and independence always was a poor combination with the vices of a frivolous and routine century.

Let us begin by investigating how much influence the force of example has on education in childhood, and on mores

in general; we then will return to the talents, the eminent positions, the influence of which acts directly on men’s imaginations.

The word is weak in comparison to the action; and to say, to repeat to the child that which he does not see us do, is already to cast into his soul doubts regarding the truth of the things that we prescribe for him. Acting without speaking – this is more than provoking through discourse, it is compelling by example for which the reaction in man is instinctual, as in the animals which are analogous with man. The moral axiom par excellence says: Do notdo to others that which you wish them [not] to do to you. Here we could likewise say: Do not do before the child that which you [do not] wish him todo. — But, you will say, a thousand things are relative to individual strength. Will I abstain for lifting a burden because my child cannot? Will I not eat some of this dish because he is contrary to it? — Let him try his strength in lifting a burden – he will soon know that he is weak and that you are strong. If he is incommoded by eating foods that are too heavy for his stomach, he will no longer want any another time; if, following your example, he drinks brandy, he will grimace, and reject it.

A good example is stronger, more active than a thousandexhortations; judge what a bad example can do in a new heart; in a heart where nature casts its first cries, and upon which social morality does not yet have dominion! Verba volant, scripta manent is a prosecutor’s proverb invented by defiance and avarice; but it can be applied to early education. Yes, words fly, and writings remain: all that is written,imprinted in our soul and our brain by the force of example is indelible.

It is good example that leads to healthy morality, as it is the bad example that slowly engenders disastrous revolutions. Given that between the saying and the doing of theupper classes, there is no unity; given that their apparent mores and their real actions imply contradiction, the people

shake their heads and murmur. Religion taught the people to respect the throne, which, in turn, protected the church; but the treasures that the priests amassed successively while preaching scorn for riches; but the mores of the high clergy especially, generally relaxed under the other deceivers of chastity, caused in part the ravages which are still before our eyes. Given that the precept and the example ceased to be in agreement, the peoples dared to deepen the conscience of the priests, and without ceasing tolove God, they rejected his ministers, and shook the thronesto their foundations. Whatever the example that may be givenby the chiefs of an empire, it is followed by their numerousvalets or courtiers; these powerful valets have other valetswho imitate them, and this ramification of individuals and interests descends to the dregs of the people.

One word, one discourse does not always suppose a certainty of intention in the one who is speaking; it is often in order to be instructed that one discusses a thing; but action is affirmative, all the discussion is done, one has decided when one acts. What did the Duke of Richelieu do to force the mistress of Louis XV to make him pay, for the third time, her debts to the court? Memoranda? Requests? Newsolicitations? No; he made use, deviously, of a book of prayers that he read, or pretended to read, in the apartments; the king wanted to know what he was reading so attentively; the sly courtier needed to be pressed to revealit, Louis snatched the book away from him— What! Ange conducteur174? What does this mean? —Sire, sooner or later it must come to this... This saying was repeated to Madame Pompadour, and Richelieu’s debts were paid immediately.

We can no longer calculate the evil caused for the human race by a scandalous writing, for we cannot number itsreaders once the work exists, and as long as it will exist.

174 TN: The Guardian Angel. L'ange conducteur dans la dévotion chrétienne réduite en pratique en faveur des âmes dévotés: avec l'instruction. A book of prayers by Jacques Coret, originally published c. 1681.

The veil of allegory often envelopes these sorts of writings, I know; but it is then that curiosity searches outtheir folds, which imaginations adds to them beyond the intention of the author. No, there are no longer any indecipherable writings; in every work one can divine towardwhat end the author leans, or would have wanted to lean; themost severe, the harshest philosopher, has said his word on the pleasures of the senses, which he has in vain wished to conceal.

What will say about the erotic poets, who, beyond the force of a lascivious subject, also solicit our sensations through all the charms of poetry? They are quite culpable, when immorality guides them! But let us thank them, when they spread their poetic graces over our miseries. Yes, amiable painters, animate all of nature. Better than Ovid, if it is possible, recall for us the sentiment of our weaknesses, reviving in the waters, the flowers, and the fruits of the earth. Show us the baleful effects of the degrading vices punished by the gods. Show us the being who has lacked in reason, metamorphosed, and replacing on the earth the vile animal dominated by a single instinct. Divinize love; compose the belt of Venus from perfumes, gold,silk and rubies. Your fictions are consoling; it is a service to humanity to communicate to it the happiness whichpushes away the sad passions whence stem all evils and all crimes. Without your sweet chimeras, man would be dragged toward an overly mechanical instinct which would make brutish his pleasures. But, o always inconceivable miracle! Surrounded by decency and modesty, love has a thousand pleasure from which is composed the garland which compels usto life.

For the rest, although the magic of the poets conducts

us along the paths of illusion, there are no prejudices for philosophy. Just as poetic fire purifies the moral of the senses, the sun indifferently pumps the perfume of the flowers and mephitic emanations; everything is purified in the ardor of its fires; everything is worth of reflections

in the eyes of the physician. The abject and stupid man abuses; the philosopher researches and admires the infinite power, which seems to make everything with nothing, or by modifying a single thing about it.

Just as pretty women, who, without being able to carry out any fundamental change to their individual, know how to adorn their exterior through all the graces of coquetry and novelty; likewise the artists innovate in the fine arts, without being able to annihilate their principals which belong to nature175. Through ennui and through inconstancy, men sometimes create a style for monstrosities, but their reign is short; 1. because the inventors of the styles do not seek the true through principles, but only in order to distinguish themselves. 2. If it is a question of a monstrosity that one shows in a spectacle, we hasten to see it once out of curiosity, and especially in order to feel happy for being exempt from it: we go to see a two-headed child in order to congratulate ourselves for having only one. If such a monster could live a long time, we imagine inadvance what the embarrassment would be of an individual directed by two moral wills who would contend with each other constantly, and who would only agree in order to give in to the most pressing needs.

We are all compelled by example; avidity for gain presses merchants to innovate; the beauty, the young fashionable man, like an orchestral conductor, give the tonethat all hasten to adopt. There are few coryphaei, but thereis a numerous swarm of weak souls who do what they have beendone, and repeat that which they have heard said. At spectacles, the audience experiences a painful twinge, when the actor seems to command them to a sentiment contrary to what it wants to adopt; in this case, the public is not persuaded, but remains undecided. The virtuous, amiable and brilliant beings that they show us on the stage are often persecuted by envy there: authors, do not give, believe me, 175 (G): See the chapter On Fashion; Essays on Music, Volume 2.

too much eloquence to the wicked detractor, for he will discolor the purest virtue; he will tarnish the qualities ofyour heroes and your heroines (1).

We will finish by saying that the greatest effort that a superior man could make, the strong proof that he could give of the solidarity of his principles, is to resist the bad examples of his century; and it is at the same time the best way of distinguishing oneself among men. Without hearing making an apology for those who seek to stand out, we will say that following an example is to do like everyoneelse; to be the opposite of the others is to become a model that we imitate, or do not imitate, but which always is striking to us. One is only a disciple in following an example: we become the leader of a sect in defying example. It is probably because Voltaire was rich, that J.-J Rousseau wantedto be poor. He knew very well that men prejudge our specificvirtues by whatever part of goods that we possess; and that they believe vulgarly, that one can be virtuous in poverty, more easily in mediocrity, and with great difficult in possessing riches. The limits of our intelligence are bounded to this point, that we better know how to run to theextremes than to follow a single procedure in perfecting them. From there, one thing leads unavoidably to its opposite. We also remark that a great man in one field stimulates emulation and causes another to arise in an opposite field. The desire to distinguish oneself, the finger of amour-propre makes itself noted in all human proceedings, as the digitus Dei is impressed on all natural productions. Amour-propre, desire to be and to appear176 meanlack of power; God, who is power himself, never has been suspected of this.

Example, thus, carries along the normal run of men, because not being strong enough to be models, types, archetypes, they are imitators.

176 (G): Noble disinterest in appearing is only remarked in highly stuffed men:is it because they are certain of being noticed?

The models for all things were formed, almost all, among the ancient peoples of the south; it is there that nature bestowed its creative genius; in the north let us perfect it, though nevertheless we are less imposing. The best prove that one can give that the sciences and the arts are not appreciated as highly among our other imitators, as they were by the Greeks, is that among the Greeks the young women, the fashionable Laîs, often placed their vanity in loving a scholar, a great artist, although aged; among us, they are contented with esteeming them. Let us not forget, however, that in this fine country, women as well have hot heads (2).

Formerly princes did themselves the honor of having a philosopher at their court; but they later feared that philosophical precepts had been popularized; and, on their side, philosophers are today prouder of their independence.

We have proved that the force of example would be for childhood the best, let us go further, the only good education; that it works strongly, whether for good, whetherfor ill, in the sciences and the arts; that it has every power over mores; finally, in order to prove all the strength of example, let us dare to say that twenty men of an eminent merit, placed in the leading positions, disseminated by estate in the various classes of society, and loudly professing their exclusive love for the truth; that these twenty men, I say, would suffice, I say, to carryalong, by their sublime example, the men of the most populous nation. Yes, the example works more strongly on us than all the advice that we could ever be given: following agood example, is to reason with oneself, to tacitly decide with oneself, to be master of oneself, enjoy one’s liberty; to follow advice is to go to school.

NOTES FOR THE EIGHTH CHAPTER

(1) I made a rather singular observation at the performancesof the Jugement de Midas. In one of the final scenes in this opera, which I love more than any of the poems for which I wrote the music, Apollo, as we know, is a rival in talent and love with Marsyas and Pan; Midas, who protects the latter two, listen to Apollo singing with disgust, and makes continual grimaces; well, Apollo, though a god, loses his divine influence in the eyes of the parterre, and I have often thought that the actor performing Midas, ought to adopt another pantomime, especially during the air

Du destin qui t’opprime,Malheureuse victime ;

Daphnè, je te perds pour jamais,Je ne verrai plus tes attraits, etc... .

I would like Midas to remain, in spite of himself, stupefied by the accents of Apollo; that he would sometimes like to improve him, but that, through a miracle if you like, he falls back into the stupor of admiration. It would only be more punishable to speak to him with arrogance and impoliteness, and to dare to condemn him in his judgement. Further: the forced admiration of the bailiff Midas, would give much more play to the two lovers of the god, Lise and Chloé; to the father and mother, who protect Apollo; and even his two rivals, who think they are lost. The force of example has too much dominion over the public, and Midas, through his imprecations, produces in the souls of the spectators, astonished to see a god being ridiculed, an indecision which causes singular harm to the effect of this scene. (At the first performance of the Misanthrope, the public applauded the sonnet by Orontes; but then, hearing it justly criticized by Alceste, he was so humiliated that his discontent almost spoiled the success of the piece.) With respect to the apologia then sung by Apollo, and in which he labels Midas as an ass who is meddling in judging the singingprize; after this direct provocation, the menacing gestures,the furor of the bailiff can exploded; and the pantomime of all the actors on the stage becomes the opposite of what it was: the Palémon despairs at success, and the two rivals of

Apollo regain their courage.

(2) Although in our temperate lands, women are more reservedthan among the Greeks, their empire is no less powerful: allis done by them or for them; it is only the frozen man who does not agree with le Gouvé in his charming poem on the Merit of women. Revient de son erreur, toi qui peux les flétrir : Sache les respecter autant que les chérir ; Et si la voix du sang n'est point une chimère, Tombe aux pieds de ce sexe a qui tu dois ta mère177.

177 TN: Return from your error, you who can wither them: Respect them as well as cherish them; And if the voice of the blood is not a chimera, Fall at the feet of this sex to which you owe your mother.

Chapter 9.On the mania that certain people have for giving advice, and on the danger of

receiving it.

We say that a sot sometimes gives good advice; we also sometimes win the prize in the lottery, but these two possibilities are extremely rare. It is only the wise who know how to keep silent or speak on the topic. The less one deeply knows a science, an art, or any affair whatsoever, the easier it is for the poorly educated man to decide a question connected with it, because he only has the knowledge and the strength to look at it from a single pointof view; he cuts the Gordian knot rather than untying it, and thinks has done marvels. But the educated man has good reasons for not precipitously make himself a judge in the matte; he sees in a moment all the connections for the object that we submit to him; he considers the times, the circumstances where you find yourself; he knows you, has judged you for a long time, not by your words, but accordingto your works; he knows, better than you, how to evaluate your talents with respect to the employment that you pursue,the matter that you wish to solicit…Is it surprising that hetakes time to deliberate and decide? Follow his advice, if he can give you one: if through goodness and consideration he tells you: “I do not know if you should undertake this thing”, do not press him too much, he has nothing flatteringto say to you; abandon the matter, or run the risk of a pooroutcome.

Let us only take advice from those whom we know well; if, which is very common, they give us advice without our asking for it, let us only decide to follow them after saying to ourselves: Who is this man? What are his successes? How and why did he manage them? Was it through his talents or his intrigues? In general, he who hastens to advise others is not provided with all that such an activityrequires: like the alchemist who claims to make gold, while he is dying of poverty.

Who is this man whom we hear in the cafés, who prescribes the march of political affairs and finances for all the powers, who notes the defects of Homer, Virgil, Corneille and Racine, who knows the rules of the theater better than Aristotle?This universal man lives on a fourth floor where his wife and children are dying of hunger; he knows what all the others should do, he knows what they need, and cannot provide what is necessary for himself. This is a philosopher, you will say; no, he is a gazette mill, who receives everything without distinction, and provides everything in the same way; this man has neither judgment nor prudence, we may regard him, at most, as a dictionary inwhich one may choose the word which is appropriate for us. The result of what we have just said is that one must know what a man is before making a connection with what he says; for like man, like judgment.

Let us now examine whether, by oneself, one cannot decide advantageously.

Chapter 10. The means of taking, oneself, the good part in difficult circumstances.

One may, I know, take counsel from one’s friend178 before beginning or ending a delicate affair, but, as we have already said, one must be quite certain about the one or ones that one consults, for, unless we address ourselves all at once to a man with integrity, having a perfect knowledge of the thing regarding which we seek advice, we are, after having consulted, even more embarrassed and undecided than ever. One said to you, no; the other, yes; the other, perhaps. There are, moreover, circumstances whereone has only the present time to decide; where, distant fromthose who are interested in us, one must decide for or against. What to do in such a case? Here, I think, is the best means one can use in all circumstances, urgent or not.

From the philosopher to most ignorant man; from the king to the slave, we all have a rival that we keep in petto, a being who is more or less close to us through his talents,his fortune, through his morale and even physical position. It is not necessary to see this person, nor even to live in the same place. The King of Sweden can have for his rival orhis disciple the King of Spain; a man of good can choose forhimself Socrates or Marcus Aurelius as the prototype for hisactions: it must then be supposed that the thing regarding which we must decide has to do with this person; after whichit must be asked, silently, if the person would take this side in a similar circumstance to the one in which I find myself, what would one say? If he took the opposite side, what would one say? Then you can be sure of what to do; and if you do not take the side to which you are inspired by theinterior voice which speaks to you very distinctly, accuse no one but yourself, and await the too-late repentance that follows all false steps, especially those directed by amour-propre. I am referring to the public voice, because, having 178 (G): I mean from one’s acquaintances, since one can only have one true friend.

no reason of interest for preferring Peter to Paul, of leaning to one side rather than to the other, most frequently it is just. Just as one approaches a mirror in order to see one’s features reflected in it, one must be transposed into another in order to see oneself as one is; instead of being an interested party, one becomes a judge with integrity in the cause of another: one easily sees in others that which one sees poorly in oneself. Without this imagined translation of oneself to another, it is amour-propre that determines us, and it almost always blinds us.

Our friends also deceive us involuntarily; for if they are really such, they are our second selves, and know no more of this than we do; if they are false friends, what interests do they not have for deceiving us! It is so difficult to know the ulterior motives of men taken individually, that it is better to take them en masse in order to have a good idea about their opinion. The greatest man of the State, after having operated, asks: what do they say? This is his true intervention. For the rest, to more closely know men taken individually, let us observe them in their physical state rather than in their moral state; one has to do with nature, the other comes from society. One dayI heard this conversation: “I cannot manage to decipher thisman; what can I do?” — Get him drunk, says one. — Make him angry, says another. — Give him a pretty mistress, says a third. They were all correct, these are true touchstones;but, for the honor of humanity, there are still estimable men who play nothing, who hide nothing; unless one forces them to it through indiscretions. Yes, the man who is honored, little by little, by his wife, his children, his servants, his friends, and from then on by public sanction; yes, this estimable man is just as you see him, I mean to say frank and loyal: inebriate him, annoy him, make him amorous, there will be affections that that he experiences; and even, having failed, he is still an excellent man. You believe him to be undecipherable, because he is simple; you think that he is playing, because he affects nothing; you judge him poorly, because you judge him according to

yourself; but he is worth more than you, for he is true, andyou dissemble.

Let us note how vast morality, this medicine for the soul, is in its combinations. Certainly the moralists have said everything; but how a single sententious word, which has so to speak, escaped them, acquires value when it is developed and placed in its setting! There is no well-considered moral maxim which does not provide a chapter whenit is developed; there is no century which does not bring infinite changes in morality; but it is especially in the nature of man that one must search, more than in his vacillating mores, in order to interest at all times.

Chapter 11. On moralists.

Why, according to many people have the characters of

Theophrastus aged less than those of la Bruyère, although the first of these works dates from about as many thousand yearsago as the latter counts in centuries? Because, if one makesan exception for some local and absolutely Greek moralities,the characters of Theophrastus depict man naturally, always new and piquant; and those of la Bruyère, in general, are only the portrait of the old man of the court of Louis XIV, which nolonger have connections with us, and which never had many connections with nature. How far these vapid courtiers are from us! How hypocritical these directors of consciences, these preachers, these confessors seem to us! I prefer the villainous man of Greece, as disgusting as he is, for at least one imagines that one is reading the true story of thepig, which is in nature; our Hyperborean delicacy may be disagreeably affected; but the physical truth exists there, and strikes us with conviction.

We might also ask whether the true manner of writing about morality is that which Théophraste, la Bruyère, and la Rochefoucauld have adopted? Whether separate maxims are preferable to moral thoughts produced by a subject? I think that separate maxims, though they have the advantage, like proverbs, of being a popular manual, should not be preferredto maxims produced by the depth of a subject. We recall and we quote, in fact, more of the pensées and precious words drawn from the works of Molière, La Fontaine, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and all the good poets, than we cite the maxims of Théophraste, la Bruyère, and la Rochefoucauld. Why? Because the actionitself of a drama, or of a didactic work strikes us and impresses these maxims more deeply in our soul. The detachedmanner is fitting, then, for a sovereign occupied with the concerns of his empire, such as Marcus Aurelius, to a courtier by estate, such as la Rochefoucault – but these results, though precious, do not thus satisfy the philosopher, who loves to look at a large subject from all

of its aspects, and who, in spite of himself, often concludes each moral paragraph with a sort of maxim, or by atrue maxim. If only to give a sense of the difference of these two genres, I will provide the reader from some detached maxims which came to my spirit in writing this book, and which I did not think I needed to reject, althoughour moralist forebears may have scoured through this always inexhaustible mine. In varying the attention of the reader, it is a sort of repose that we will seek to provide him in the following chapter; after which, we will once more take up our subject in the same way in which we have begun. (i).

NOTEFOR CHAPTER ELEVEN. (1) I hesitated about where I should arrange right off all the maxims that are connected to a single subject, or whether I would leave them pell-mell as they came to my soulwhile composing them. Although less methodical, I have preferred the later method, because I have through that one would experience a fatiguing monotony in reading various maxims connected with each other, and that the variety was preferable.

Chapter 12.Various maxims on different subjects.

l.

All our strengths are in truth; all our weaknesses are inlying179.

2.In all of nature, there is no strength without truth, nor

truth without strength.

3.I was asked, one day, whether, in the musical work withwhich I was occupied, I used considerable strength: theymeant to say many instruments of every sort, and a great

complication of chords. I answered that I sought to includemuch truth, which, in my opinion, was stronger than trumpets

and drums.

4.

Under the ancien régime, a woman from the provinces, inarriving in Paris in order to plead a suit against her

mother, shredded her in the presence of a numerous company,which she wanted to persuade in her favor. Not being able to

bear this filial impiety any longer, I cried out: Quellehorreur! “Is it not true, monsieur”, this woman said to me,

“that I am right to sue?” “Your mother has even more rightto complain”, I said to her, “about having a child such as

you.”

5.When men love the truth as much as they love to seem brave;when it will no longer be possible to steal from them, nor

179 (G): Here is this maxim translated into Latin: In veritate fortis, in mendacio debilis. If only I could translate it into every language! I have takenit for the epigraph of my book; I would like to engrave it in every spirit and in every heart.

to lie with impunity by loading a pistol, then they willstop in the streets to say: this man you see has lied; his

untruth is attested in the public book in which evil actionsare recorded. Then there will no longer be any alternativefor liars beyond changing their city or country; and morethan ever, the proverb will say: A beau mentir qui vient de loin180.

6. Lying, in whatever manner, is lending one’s money to someonewho is bankrupt. Lying gives us a moment of respite, which

we pay for with long suffering.

7.Man in nature had everything in his possession; man insociety is dispossessed through the laws of inheritance.

8.“The first”, says Rousseau, “who dared to say: this is mine,

and who found men weak enough to believe him, was thefounder of society.”

9.When we agreed that money represented everything that onecould desire, we found the way of putting lands, provinces

and kingdoms in a sack.

10.The extraordinarily rich individual lifts the spirits ofhonest folk. He can take the calm air of the religiously

blessed, we would never think that his millions came to himby having a good sleep. If his vessels have sunk, he maywell complain, but he will not find anyone who sincerely

sympathizes with him: which shows that, above all,inequality is displeasing to man.

11.180 TN: Long ways, long lies.

The infant who cries for his mother’s breast is moreeloquent than the man who cries because they have stolen a

hundred thousand écus from him.

12.Love is an exchange of the same needs; it is freest commercebetween the two sexes, where there is only enjoyment. If itcauses tears to be shed, it is because one is no longer paidin the same coin: one then only sees suitors for women by

whom they are detested, and women who weep because they areno longer loved.

13. When words, according to their just value, will be arranged

in series like units or number, there will no longer beobscurity in our ideas. 181

14. The distich of the dead, which goes: Hodiè mihi, cras tibi, wouldbe very useful for the living, if they allowed the phrase to

be reversed, saying: Hodiè tibi, cras mihi.

15.The midge, which we call ephemeral, is born in the morning,reproduces at midday, and dies of old age in the evening.Man does the same. The dial for his clock is larger; the

hand, without stopping, takes longer to traverse it; this isthe only difference.

16.What is time? Moments that succeed each other. How would we count time if there were neither sun, nor season, nor successive vegetation in nature? We would no longer count it; we would be in the wave of eternity.

17.At dying, the last words of the sensible man should be

181 (G): See the chapter On Time.

these: I embarked, I navigated, I have arrived: world, I saymy adieux; eternity, I greet you182.

18.If you wish to measure the highest pyramid, measure its

shadow at the same time as that of a less elevated body theheight of which you know, and compare. If you likewise wishto have the measure of a man’s morality, learn whether it is

impossible for him to lie.

19.In his first vigor, the adolescent thinks that he knowseverything and possesses everything; he doubts at forty;

experience then comes to tell him that his tomb awaits him.

20.The penalty follows crime as the shadow follows the body.

21. Our genius, our health, our life, the moment of our death,depend on influences from the air, just as mercury enclosedin a tube is subject to it. The least change in the winds

has determined the final breath of life for the great men ofevery century, as the lightest zephyr has detached the leaf

which is ready to fall.

22. Like the barometer, which, during the finest weather,

already announces the coming rain, and which, while thetorrent inundates us, promises the return of fine weather,

the contrarian man sees already future woe in presenthappiness, and wants us to hope when all is desperate.

23.Avarice announces old age, as liberality announces the timeof love. In order to leave, the old miser packs his bags; in

order to settle in, the young man expends his capital. A182 (G): This pensée is taken in part from those of Marcus Aurelius.

young miser is a precociously old man, as often the old andliberal man is still a galant man in his prime.

24. Pride, in a scholar, announces poorly supported pretentions,

as simplicity announces true knowledge. There is thisdifference between true and superficial talents, that theformer do that which the latter say that they will do. Forthe rest, one must never rely on scholars nor on artistswhen they decide on their own merit and that of their

confreres; but (supposing that we have appreciated them inadvance), when they arrive successively in a single place,pay attention to that which you experience in seeing them

appear, and you will scarcely be deceived.

25. It is better to know well than to know much; it is better to

know nothing than to know poorly.

26.Knowing much without knowing well is like a large and

disordered library awaiting the intelligent care of thebibliographer.

27.I asked a young and very lazy draftee why he showed such repugnance at serving his fatherland. “Because”, he told me,“when the drum beats, they always make me march faster than I would like.”

28.In general, we are poltroons for ourselves, and brave for

others. Often all the poltroon lacks to be brave is to givemore importance to the opinion of men. This man, who lets amember be cut off without complaining, shivers when he seesthe point of an épée. This one fights bravely with a pistol,

but fears armes blanches183, and vice versa. One who generouslygives his gold dreads a meeting regarding a contested debt.I have seen a brave warrior, a fine musician, tremble whensinging an air in a concert. All these various sorts ofbravery and poltroonery have singularly to do with the

prejudices of education; for fear or steadfastness shouldonly depend on the moral or physical strength between theindividuals attacking each other and defending themselves,on the energy of the passions, on the good disposition of

the nerves, and on habit.

29.The wisest of men pales at the idea of his destruction. For

him there is only one way of terminating his lifecourageously, which is to die comforted by his amour-propre.

30. Today the morality of men is only a speculation;

nevertheless, cause the liar to be rejected as is thepoltroon; that the prejudice of honor is that of being

truthful, and all of morality is rectified.

31. The pensive melancholy of youth makes us smile; that of oldage moistens our eyes, because we presume that the former issad through an embarrassment of choice, and that the latter

regrets having nothing more to choose.

183 TN: Cutting weapons.

32. To get out of a bind, immoral men may well say that virtues

and vices are nothing but futile abstractions, since avirtue in one country is a crime in another, and vice versa;

that, consequently, all the points of morality are crimes orvirtues in alternation, according to the caprice of the

peoples who institute them in laws or in customs: I answerthat this is not the caprice, but the will, the interest ofall those who determine them. If the majority wants a thing,and which some do not wish at all, let them go farther toseek a land that is more agreeable to them. The law of

nature, which gives everything to the first occupant, untila stronger one takes it from him, is null once shares areagreed to by all: we are only hanged because the original

impulse of nature was stronger than moral obstacles.

33. Passions are to human nature what winds are to

navigation. Without passions, man is nothing; badlydirected, he is tormented by them; well governed, he sails

with full sails toward his happiness.

34.The snare of pretty women is offer in a thousand ways, and

always with grace, that which they almost never give, if onedesires it too deeply. The counter-snare of handsome youngmen is to have the air of little desiring that which they

infinitely desire.

35. The charm that women emit regarding the mystery of love is acontinual lie; and the art of subjugating women is that of

reducing love to the natural. 36.

There is no pretty woman, individually, who does not laughwith pity in preparing everything that will turn our head.In this sense, what is man? A woman’s toy. What is woman?

All for man.

37.If amour-propre is not involved, woman loves only the man

who pleases here: but man only sees one woman in all prettywomen. If some women act like men, it is because they havechanged sex; their modesty is no more; they attack, and we

retreat.

38.If man had as much modesty as woman, making love would be a

pleasant foolishness.

39.

Love, for the philosopher, is only a unity to which theimagination of youth adds zeros.

40.Love is zero for childhood; adolescence puts a unity beforeit, which makes 10. At twenty we add a zero, which makes100, from twenty-five to forty, another, which makes 1000.After which one rather quickly subtracts one numeral at a

time until the final zero of decrepitude.

41. There are three ways of considering love: for man in natureit is reduced to the physical; it is a terrible need if itlacks an outlet; but it is forgotten once it is satisfied.Among poorly educated men, such as our Gaulish ancestors,

love, directed by the ladies, was a God that had itsreligion, its cults and its rites. For the wise man, themysteries of love, more elucidated, are reduced to their

proper value.

42.

Love is a true religion in which women are superstitious;robust men, theists; old men, atheists.

43.The natural and cultivated spirit has the perfume of a thousand flowers. Knowledge acquired by force of study resembles the inodorous sunflower that always seeks the celestial fire that has disdained it.

44.The god of fire, the burning Apollo, religiously respecting the modesty of the Muses, teaches us that genius is nourished by the continence of the senses.

45.After having read the books by the atheists, one always comes back to asking how, in its immense creations, nature can be so intelligent without having been designed thus. These atheists will say that the world is a living machine in all its parts, where everything is germ or matrix, which seek each other out mutually, and without ceasing; that after its creation, each living being makes use, through instinct, of the faculties that it finds within itself, in order to preserve its life; that if its faculties do not suffice for living, it dies, and that its material dough, better fashioned another time, preserves life longer and as long as the substantial strength of its developed germ allows; that dying or being born is all the same thing for nature, since there is no dissolution without generation….all this is very good; but put all the germs andthe matrices, all the salts, finally, all the substance known to physics and chemistry, put them, I say, in a bowl, in the earth, in a pit with sweet or salty water; and if, after a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand years, there issues from this one of the beings that we know, and which then will have been made in some other way than that by which the offspring of every species are made, then I will believe that everything can have been made by the

natural approximation of the substances; I will believe thata man, having eyes made for seeing (or seeing because he haseyes), a nose for smelling, a mouth provided with teeth for eating, a palate for tasting, ears for hearing, a head for thinking, and all the organs perfectly made to do what it isthat they do, then I will believe that nature is filled witha divine intelligence, and I will worship nature at the riskof worshipping myself. But if nothing is created by the approximation of all the substances, o atheists! allow us tobelieve that something else than the movement which is inherent to matter has ordered and orders nature to organizein the greatest perfection; that this other thing that you do not understand, because you are a piece of the machine, and not the workman, that this other thing, finally, is God,who is certainly the master, I think, of making our spirit ascend, through attraction, toward his divine essence, as hemakes matter weigh upon matter. — But, they go on to say, if God had taken his pleasure in ordering creation, he wouldhave done a better job. — Incredulous men, you are nothing but a unit in an immense sum! Go, travel to other planets, you will see other marvels that you do not even have the spirit to desire or foresee. O my God! I adore you, in spiteof what the Spinozas and the Dolbacks have said. Isn’t it strange that they wish to take away our hope, when, through the instinct of life, we hope from our first heartbeat, to our last? ...

46.In quitting the book of an atheist, my spirit is no more content than my stomach would be if they took its nourishment when it was in need of some.

47.For our spirit to produce proper ideas, our nerves should bein good condition, and in tune with each other, like the strings of a musical instrument: thus, the persons subject to nervous disorders, must have little aplomb, and be discordant in each one of their phrases, as in their actions.

48.When I hear my music poorly performed, I think that I see myself in a broken mirror; but when it is Lays who sings it, I fear that I see my portrait flattened.

49.The proof that man in society needs to be held back by mores

is that drunkenness, which shows him to us naked, is ahorrible thing.

50. The first time that children forgot the respect that they

had always had for their father, was, probably, the day whenNoah got drunk.

51. An act of irreligion is an act of braggadocio which is morefrightening to the audacious one who commits it, than those

who witness it.

52. The most bestial animals must be proud, for all proud men

are turkeys.

53.The proof that the air of grandeur, the imposing air, is

factitious in all men, is that they cannot prevent themselves from laughing at the least accident that occurs for someone who is up on stilts. I laughed, in spite of myself, when I saw Jupiter, dancing at one of our theatres, make a faux pas, sprain his foot, and go clopping off with his lightning in his hand.

54.The efforts to please of an aged woman are too much like the

Gascon who struts with his pawned habit184.55.

I am not an inconvenient proprietor to which one may addressthe verse by Gresset,

Il ne vous fera pas grace d’une laitue185:

When I show my hermitage of Emile, I cannot persuade myself that I am at home, I always think that I am at the house of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

56.When, between rivals with the same talent, you hear it said:“He is a certainly a man of merit, no one doubts it, this istaken for granted, let’s not discuss it anymore; but thisman is odious in so many ways; he beats his wife, he loves

the girls, and worse yet:” Then you can be sure that the onewho is being denigrated thus is one of the leaders in his

field, and that envy shreds the hearts of his rivals.

57.One day at dinner they were saying, to flatter me, that

Gluck, certainly, was good at lyric tragedy; but that he wasa drunkard, who only composed between his glasses and his

bottles. “Come”, I said, interrupting the discourse, “let usdrink as well, let us drink to Gluck’s health; they say thathe is sick, and if we lose such a man, we perhaps will never

find him again.”

58.The crapulous libertine is a pig who enjoys filth. His temple is a cloaca, the theater of his loves, a pallet wherevermin, leprosy and plague share all his pleasures.

59.

184 (G): People wittily call a pawned outfit an eighteen, that is, twice nine [neuf=new]. 185 TN: from a play by Gresset, Le Méchant, in which the author describes a house-proud character who insists on showing his guests all of his “petit domaine”, not even omitting a lettuce.

Modesty is a red rose for which only the breath of an angel can approach it without besmirching it.

60.Virtue on earth is a divinity, which lives from the

sacrifices which render it immortal.

61.One could say about women, more or less, what a peasant frommy country said while planting peas. He said: “if they come,

they will not come, but if they do not come, they willcome.” He meant pigeons. With a certain merit, one could sayof women: if I want here, I will not have her; if I do notwant her, I will have her. Desires that are too ardent, toopronounced, in seeking a woman, almost always make us fail

to conquer her, because the woman who is sure of being lovedfears to lose her empire through the granting of her favors.One must, but this is difficult, persuade her that one will

love her more after having received them.

62.Those for whom the following qualities are natural will certainly make their fortune: activity, discretion, veracity. Those, who through reflection, acquire these same qualities, can also make their fortune.

63.Goods that are acquired questionably weight on our conscience while destroying our reputation: thus a thief will never make his fortune; he loses more than he gains.

64.

“To avenge myself on my enemies”, said Beaumarchais, I want tolive until they are all dead.”

65.Perpetual movement is in matter, since unceasingly all

beings are formed or deformed. Let us not be surprised then if man, made of matter always in motion, subjected to all the variations of the air that he breathes, is superstitiousafter his dinner, theist upon going to sleep, atheist when he rises in the morning, if, he does not fix his opinions through unshakable precepts.

66.We are right to say that we always want to do the things where we are only mediocre or poor. A dying woman said oftento the priest who was providing her the help of religion: I am going, then, to heaven to sing the praises of the Lord there!, and the priest each time said to her: No, this is not the proper job for you. Asked about this after the woman had died, he said that her whole life long she had sung out of tune.

67.“You have too great a love of solitude”, they said to an egotist: to which he answered: “I find no one who is so interesting as myself.”

68. For fifty years, Voltaire talked of nothing to us but the

infirmities of his old age, and his approaching end. Was hewrong to want to make us believe that he was already no

longer? No, he knew that we do not even pardon thecelebrated man from causing himself to be talked about too

much, unless it is after his death.

69.When men meet each other, it would be more profitable forthem to greet each other by saying “Good Death”, than by

saying “Good Day.” What is a day? A portion of ourexistence; but a good death supposes a beautiful life that

has preceded it.

70.When I am taken by some fit of amour-propre, which mostoften happens when good health makes us feel hale once

again, I have the habit, in order to repress this movement,

of running my hand over my head. I note the strong or weakparts of this round box; I follow the circumference of thegreat pits where our eyes are lodged. My head, I then say,is constructed like all the craniums I have seen in the

cemeteries.

71.I have only once seen, in my youth, two men in

dishabille fighting with épées: this picture has not yet been erased from my memory, for the other day I saw in a dream the two skeletons of these two same men, who were still battling. Nothing more comic than the jumps that they made forward, back, to thrust, or avoid.

72.Man in society is so accustomed to tribulations and distressof every kind, that he is almost ashamed when happiness smiles on him for a few days.

73.It seems, in general, that the maxims of the courtier La Rochefoucault, are the fruits of a reflective study of all the subtleties of the lie.

74.Perfection is not in the domain of man; this is what is

said by these two verses whose author I do not know. Croire que l'on sait tout est une erreur profonde ;

C'est prendre l'horizon pour les bornes du monde186.

75.Who are the leading liars among the men of all the

nations? Those who, in their language, make the most use ofdiminutives and superlatives.

76.

186 TN: To think that one knows all is a profound mistake; This is taking the horizon to be the limits of the world.

In being born, we cry, in living we complain, in dying, we suffer; what then is life? “It is building death”, said Montaigne.

Chapter 13. On Death.

Birth and death are within the purview of the moralist;it is between these two points of departure and arrival thatone finds the entire morality of man. Moralists, both ancient and modern, have spoken more about death; they have likewise gone deeply into each object of morality with whichwe concern ourselves; however, some character traits may perhaps have escaped them; and none of them, as far as I know, had as a special basis the investigation of the truth of all things; this was, certainly, their implicit intention, but ours is direct, particular, and unique; this is where we believe that we have added to their multiplex investigations.

All that has life, loves life and fears death, if it isaware of its existence. Even among the beings that we regardas insensitive, no rending of their members is done without a plaintive cry; one cannot without noise split a log, rip abranch from the tree, a fruit from its stem,…..unless the matter is dead.

What is life? Through the aid of analysis, physics and chemistry will perhaps tell us some day. If, in everything that is within our scope, whether in the interior of the globe, whether at its surface, from the mineral, the pebble,the plant, which we believe to be insensible, to the man of judgment, there exists a unique, spirituous substance, the quantity of which gives more or less activity, sensitivity, and heat to whatever being, we will say that the germ of life is there. But it is with man alone and his inevitable end that we will concern ourselves.

No one can think of his destruction without shuddering.I believe, nevertheless, that death seems more horrible to us than it actually is; for we often dread it through prejudice of habit, and we brave it likewise. It is not in health that one can judge death, no more than a gourmand in the middle of a banquet has an idea of abstinence: there areno preexisting connections.

The man devoted to nature has little fear of death; he takes to his bed, suffers patiently, and dies without regrets. If he complains, if he sighs, this is, as we have said, a movement of resistance common to everything that ceases to exist. In war, the savage chants his agony, and defies his victorious enemies while dying. Our soldiers onlyfear death in a first combat. In general, it is with calm that all the dying address their last desires to us; almost always they complain less than we do, and it is for ourselves that we weep for them.

The more civilized man is, the more he dreads death; but the man of the world, the valorous warrior, the man distinguished by his place or his talent, have, in their amour-propre, a powerful resource against death. Socrates, condemned to perish, surrounded by his disciples, by his friends, puts all his glory into dying without weakness. My friends, he tells them, I am closer to God than to men: such were his last words. In our days, Mirabeau, hearing the cries of the people assembled before his door, making vows for his re-establishment, turns his head aside, and dies, while saying to sleep. If great men, magnanimous warriors, whose end has been celebrated, had died without consolation in the hospital, we would have to remove seven eights of their sublime powers from the history of these illustrious deaths.

The apogee of life is youth, health in all its strengthand all its brightness. We are then like a very high tower from which we contemplate with delight all the good things of a long life, all the benefactions of nature. Beneath thistower is the abyss of death, the depth of which we only

probe with dread. We must, however, descend there – this is the supreme order of nature and time, which constantly destroys in order to always recreate. We must descend there,I say, but not pitch ourselves in. From the summit of this tower to its foundations there is a very gradual stair whichwe descend each day one step while the sun goes about the globe. On the day of our birth we have, it is true, some thousands of steps to descend; but then the individual is soweak, he is so ignorant of the perceptions of his weak being, that he would fall precipitously, did not maternal care look after him at each moment of his existence. When the individual receives death a moment after having receivedlife, the perplexity of his sensations does not allow him toappreciate either one or the other; the instant of life and that of death, so to speak, are confused when they are too close together.

At ten to twenty, the young man descends slowly, even

jumps a few steps at once, without dreaming that his days are numbered, and that with each step his life diminishes bya degree. The force of his spirits holds him as if suspended; he does not even dread a fall, which seems impossible to him.

From twenty to sixty, his eyes perceive the abyss, he includes his fall among the list of possible things; but he fully enjoys then the fruits of his education and the aplombof his forces, which make him envisage death without audacity, but with firmness. This is the age of philosophy, and to philosophize, said Montaigne, is to learn to die. In autumn, enriched by the abundance of all the fruits of the earth, man is consoled for the loss of the beautiful days ofsummer. From sixty to one hundred, his forces diminish, his spirits march slowly, and make each day, each instant that he counts with worry seem longer to him. Some steps which remain for him to descend seem to him like a long course through the preparation required and the pains that it causes him. A bird, at twenty, he traveled through space; atninety, a tortoise, he drags himself, step by step; finally

he has arrived at his last step, his last moment; then a puff makes him topple; it is no longer a fall, it is, so to speak, walking on the ground floor.

Let us remember this dialogue between a doctor and a dying philosopher: Your head is in a bad position, turn it. — If I budge I am dead. — You have more strength than you think. — If you want, fine: he turned his head and died.

How to feel death, when still an atom of life remains? We can observe this as a truth. The infant dies without moral resistance, because he does not know himself at all, and his physical resistance is only a movement of his instinct. The young man braves the death that he believes impossible, given the forces that animates him. Old men, given their infirmities, which we can regard as a salutary preparation, have a secret tendency to terminate their painful voyage; if you do not keep an eye on them, they all want to do things beyond their strength, and out of ten caducous old men, eight die from a fall anticipating by several days the one that was approaching.

A consoling support, and sublime at the same time, remains for the man of every age: this is religion. It showshim, softly, the moment where he will cease to be here belowin order to return to the breast of his creator God. Let us refrain from lamenting the man or angelic woman who is thus being separated from us; let us envy, rather, her happiness.

Through everything we have just said, it is easy to seehow much nature, amour-propre, and religion help us to die. Let us avoid, then, all that may grieve the one whom we willlose; through considerations, respect, pity, let us moderateour sensitivity in realizing that his is almost extinguished. It is we who render the funerary scene so terrible through the somber machinery with which we surroundit. Let us only show to the dying the persons and things that they are used to seeing; surrounded by their loving relatives, let the greatest tranquility reign around them;

all that strikes their eyes, all that they perceive that is out of the ordinary affects them; they say to themselves: These are the farewells that they come to say to me. The hope that they still preserve of recovering their health, although they tell us the opposite in observing our expressions, this hopeis taken from them by the somber and melancholy regards of the alarmed onlookers. If it is a pious soul that arrives atits final hour, the tears we shed can weaken its fervor and faith. My mother, as pious as she is respectable, and aged eighty-five, often speaks to me of her approaching end; thenI tell her that we will not be separated for long; that if she is the first to quit this world, I will believe that there is for me, in heaven, a protectoress who will make my path surer and easier: here is how I console her. No eternalfarewell, I say, when, in comparison with eternity, we leaveeach other for such a short time187. I have lost three children who were very dear to me; it seems to me that it was yesterday that I lost them, and that it is tomorrow thatI will see them once more.

187 (G): She completed her beautiful life at the beginning of spring in year 8. Her weakness could not bear the springtime forces of nature which should have reanimated her.

Chapter 14.Why, at whatever age, happy or unhappy, do we find so few

men who want to begin to live again?

A thousand times this question was put to men of every estate: Would you want to begin your career in this world over again? No, they answered, young and old. This refusal is instinctual; thus it is true. If, toward the end of his days, man recapitulated the faults that he committed; if, gnawed by remorse, he could return to the time prior to that of his errors; then, certainly, a virtuous sacrifice would make himconsent to be revived in order to avoid the same excesses. But it is through sacrifice that they would consent, and it is nonetheless proved that, except for this case, men in general would not like to pass once more through the stages of a new life in this world. The child, entirely devoted to nature, to whom the laws of society are still foreign; the child whom we would oppose in his foolish games in order to fit him to our customs, sighs after adolescence. Seated on the benches of the school where we press him to educate himself, he would like to be a man, and free in his actions.Having arrived at the age of manhood, surrounded by his numerous and young family, he wants to see his children wellestablished; he aspires to the country retreat where he can find rest from all his efforts. This time finally arrives, but it is that of old age, which brings with it infirmities,and he is still far from the happiness he had imagined for himself. Ask him then, which period of his life he misses: none. It is thus toward the future that, by instinct, man directs all his vows; it is a new more perfect existence after which he aspires; it is for a new life that he is impatient, if baleful ideas of materialism have not corrupted his judgment and his natural conscience.

The hope which never leaves us, which sustains us in adversity, causes us to pass from one period to another of our life in running after the best of that which we are experiencing now. If we have worries, distress, trials, we

hope for a happy outcome. In our maladies, we see flourishing health return our original strength to us; our deceitful imagination always shows us a fair tomorrow. Rarely do we have enjoyment in the present moment, where this moment of enjoyment is fleeting, like the flash which shines, and is extinguished. If our pleasure is moderate, wewant more; if it is lively, extreme, it overcomes our forces, we only have a good sense of it in our recollections. I repeat then, that it is always a fair tomorrow that we desire.

However, after we are lulled by hope, we sense the fatal end approach; illusion then ceases; everything in us tells us that moving backwards is impossible; the world is no longer fitting for our failing being, and always men quitus before we quit them. We can no longer journey through thecountryside; public games have changed in their appearance and language; our stomach refuses our nourishments; childhood turns away from our superannuated appearance; the freshness of beauty increases yet further the wrinkles of our caducity; even the deference that one should and does accord to old age seems only to be anticipated respect for the tomb. At the sight of these presages, we believe, finally, that life is ended by death. Hope, which has persuaded, over our life, no matter how long, that tomorrow’s sun will still shine for us – this miraculous prestige is destroyed, and we voluntarily surrender to nature, to the earth which will petrify our members, withoutwanting to begin once more a career ready to finish, which we would only begin to terminate it just the same.

We once more ask men if they would like to live eternally upon the earth; some consent on the condition thatthis be in the prime of their age. But if one asks, do you desire to live eternally in another world better than ours? Then all hearts open to hope; everyone agrees to this, and for the pious man, the feverish excitement, caused by the dissolution of his being, is for him only a thirst for immortality that only the divine fountains can slake. — Oh!

(some of the incredulous will say) if only during this lifewe had more certainty about the future! What man would not regulate his conduct through pure mores! Who would not voluntarily sacrifice a few years for a happy eternity! — After Socrates, Marcus-Aurelius, and the great men who, almost all of them believed in the immortality of the soul, what remains to be said on this subject? Nevertheless, let us see, let us try.

Chapter 15. Some physical probabilities of the immortality of the soul.

The more one studies man, his origin and his habits, the more one fears that perfection is heterogeneous to his primitive nature; and that we are only cast here below in order to undergo a preparatory purgation for one or various other lives that we have to pass on other planets more perfect than the earth. For, to suppose a planetary world where the inhabitants are, as a whole, more extraordinary than we are, more undecided between good and evil, more inclined to lying, and where regeneration takes place by a more singular means – this is scarcely possible188. Physicists no longer doubt that a vivifying essence, which they label with the names of various fluids, circulates around and within all the planets that make up the universe.This spirit of life is, however, more or less active, and ofa different order, according to the perishable envelope which holds it captive. Without leaving the earth, we see men, animals, plants, differing among themselves according to the atmosphere in which they respire; which proves that an inferior essence forms toads in the marsh, and that a subtler and looser essence forms purer creatures in the elevated regions. To the degree that these beings are elevated toward the heavens, they are purified with the air that they breath, and then their faculties are loosened. At the summit of the highest mountains, the ill opposite to that with which we were affected in subterranean or putrid regions makes itself felt in us: on the summit of Mont Blanc, man already feels a discomfort, a difficulty in breathing, a certain lack of ensemble between him and the elements which surround him, which tells him that he has arrived at the limits of his natural and coarse sphere. Now,188 (G): One would say that the gods, as a joke, chattering about the reproduction of the human species, and especially in order to prove their omnipotence, had wagered on putting pleasure where only disgust should be; and, that after having done this prodigy, they wagered further that the being thus mocked would be proud of his noble origin.

if, on other planets, the primordial elements are one hundred times purer than on our mountains; if there exist elements which we do not have at all; if this ignis, this ether so pure, so refined; if a yet more subtle essence there animates all of nature, the fortunate beings who live there are, certainly as much farther above us as the men of the fair climate of Greece are above the frozen Lapp. If, on yetother planets, some beings are nourished by the purest spirit as we are nourished by meat and vegetables, whence wecollect a few spirituous atoms, how much must their intellectual faculties be superior to ours? Who knows whether, beyond the senses which they possess in a greater perfection, they do not have other senses which we are lacking? Perhaps they sense the movements of the planet thatbears them; perhaps they smell through all the pores of their skin, as we only smell through the nose; perhaps theirsense of touch is so delicate that, through the interventionof the air, they touch the most distant objects; their eyes are so piercing, their atmospheric air so clear, so subtle and fine, that they can perhaps see at all distances; perhaps they can hear the harmonious noise caused by the movement of the stars, and which, according to what Plato says, form consonances through the same divisions, the same connections, and in the same harmonic system as that we use.Perhaps they sense the influences of the magnetic fluid and of the other fluids that dispense movement and life189.

After these hypothetical considerations, can one be astonished that the men whose sensations are the purest, because they live in a discrete continence of the sixth sense, and they abound in spirit, believe that there exist in the universe beings superiors to us through their nature?Aery spirits, sylphs, angels, devils, the immortality of souls – are they not consequences of these ideas? — But, through not ceasing to be spiritually; in moving from one

189 (G): “It has been proved, through analysis, that there is iron in our blood”, a doctor said to me; “the lover at the North Pole must thus”I said to him, “communicate a movement to this iron and to our blood which contains it, and we do not feel it.”

world to another, do we retain the memory of having previously existed elsewhere? I answer, that the earth, being the lest perfect of planets, that upon which we, our souls or our spirits, begins our aerial courses, we cannot, in this case, have any memory of having been, since this is the first step of the great voyage. But, in then traveling through the other planets, it is possible that we may have then a perfect recollection, although spiritual, of all thatwe have previously been in the worlds where our spirits animated bodies. No philosopher, I think, had yet publicizedthis new proof of immortality of the soul: and what we are saying, responds in a rather peremptory manner to the materialist who says, and this is his strongest argument, “that if our soul, dwelling in the heavens, ought to recall his previous existence, this same soul would reveal today that which it was, before having animated our body on the earth.” Here we are, I know, fallen into the system of metempsychosis. Is the spirit which animates us the same in all of nature? Is it the same spirit which circulates in theveins of heroes and in the filaments of a cabbage190? One could believe this, since the former is nourished by substances from the latter. But since the plant, on earth, has no sentiment of its existence, the spirit that animates it seems to do so without love, and to leave it without regret. It is only a receptacle for the spirituous atoms destined for our nutrition, as, for the rest, our material debris serves to nourish other creatures. But the spirit contained in the plants, what does it become? The spirit of the animals more perfect than the plants, what does it become? Shall we say that these spirits, of the second and third order, perish, and that only the spirit of man is immortal? I avow that it is difficult get used to the idea of perishable spirits, while we unendingly see the spirituous part combined with matter escape towards the heaven, when matter changes form. No, I prefer to believe

190 (G): The system of metempsychosis has been pushed so far among certain nations, that a woman does not dare to whip her cat for fear of thrashing her grandmother.

that the immensity of the heavens collects all the spirits of the first, second, and third order; but that the spirits of the two last orders are only destined to cause celestial productions to hatch, a thousand objects, finally, of which we have no idea, which serve to delight the happy dwellers of the ethereal plains. Yes, in putting together all our forces, all the reasonable deductions, without seeking to favor the dogma of the immortality of the soul, we can reasonably believe that only the spirit of man carries a flattering memory of having animated a thinking being, and that the spirits with which the plants were impregnated, with which the animals were endowed, follow the destination which I have just indicated, without bringing any pleasure from their mission, since they only animated species of vegetative machines. I animated, said the spirit of the third order, the sweet violet and the rose which are no more; subject to divine providence, I fulfilled my functions. I animated, said the spirit of the second order, the sweet dove and the furious lion, I likewise fulfilled mytask. But, said the purest spirit, of the first order after the divine spirit, I animated man, similar to the gods through the gifts of his genius; at the end of his brilliantcareer I bring his soul and his life to the heavens; he lives in me, I live in him from century to century, and our common existence and our glory are immortal.

Another physical probability of the immortality of souls still presents itself to the imagination: here it is with its objections resolved, as it seems. The soul is immortal, agreed; but the soul of the man of good, that of the weak man who has knelt without being entirely corrupted,and that of the perverse man, do they all equally mount to the skies in order to dwell in the same dwelling there? We cannot believe this without compromising divine justice. But, according to the notions of philosophy and the scriptures, space is divided into seven heavens divide space191 (*) ; the less purified souls only arrive at the 191 (G): There are many mansions in my Father’s house. Multœ sunt mansiones in domo patris mei. St. John.

first heaven; other purer souls, the second….and so forth; and the purest of all, to the highest heaven with the Eternal. We may also suppose that, after having been purified in a lower residence, souls are elevated from heaven to heaven. We see that this supposition is perfectly in accord with physics, which elevates substance in proportion to their purity.

The awareness of a God before whom man prostrates himselfthrough instinct; the desire for his perfection, which neverleaves him, and which is also in his instinct; the immense distance that he leaves between him and the most perfect animal which is always in statu quo, while man astonishes himself with his bold perceptions…; all these reasons lead us to believe that this world is only an à revoir for us all in eternity; and that unless an unregulated amour-propre pushes our intellectual facilities beyond the limits prescribed for it by nature, an intimate sentiment tells us

That there is an us in us, which tells us to hope.

The man who does not have the strength to see into the future is ceaselessly concerned with the past; the egotist, short-sighted, only sees the present; but the philosopher for whom the past is known, and who observes the present, sees entirely into the future: which proves, further, in this moral sense, that education, regeneration are necessaryto lead us to immortality.

Great men that I worship, Plato, Socrates, Titus, Trajan, Marcus-Aurelius, Fénélon, Malesherbes, my father, my children, my friends,yes, we will see each other again, we will love each other in the breast of a beneficent and eternal good, in order to die no more, to never leave each other again! Dear Ossian! HowI love your consoling fictions; how I love to see the sails,the rigging of your ships, covered with the spirit of our fathers and our friends, who cannot separate themselves fromus after their death; who deign to quit for a moment their

celestial dwellings in order to see us again, and who suffer, perhaps, at not being able to assure us more particularly of their amiable presence! How I love to see their spirit color the purpled edges of the clouds! How I love to hear their celestial voice in that of the zephyr! Sublime dogma of the immortality of souls, sweet pleasure ofhope for the future, never abandon us! This is our religion,which we must constantly consolidate. Poets of our days, paint this future for us with all the charms of your immortal poetry! Cursed be the dog who wants everything to die when the envelop of the soul is dissolved; blessed be the consoling angel who makes us return after this life to the breast of God, love, and friendship. Holy Trinity! Be the sign of true believers: God, in the name of the father; love in the name of the son; holy friendship, our spiritual reunion. O God of the universe! Cause it to be thus for yourglory and our felicity (a).

NOTE FOR THE FIFTEENTH CHAPTER.

(1) In seeing a man who is somber and taciturn, I have oftenblurted out: He is as sad as an atheist. If there was a country where only atheism was known; another where mythology was the dominant religion, and one had to choose between one or the other of these fabulous lands in order to make one’s residence there, ah! how the latter would be preferable. Theone would be a mortuary impasse; the other residence of Flora, a continual enchantment, and the perspective of the future would make it more delectable still. —It is not a question, you will say, of choosing what will be agreeable to the human species, but that which is more reasonable. — Iwill always say that a word is lacking for the atheists for them to persuade us, and this word includes everything: it is to tell us how, without intelligence, nature made everything in the greatest of order. — It is through its own essence, they say, that it acts thus; it can act in no other way. —. Well then, I adore this perfect, divine and immortal essence, the principle of all good things: I feel the need to love, that of hope; all my ideas, my desire,

unendingly bear me toward a very happy eternity. Impious eon! Leave me my God, and do not come to make any more useless efforts to take from me the hope for the future.

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him, said Voltaire; a sublime idea, certainly, but let them change the word invent for me, it wounds my heart.

Chapter 16. Of the necessity for a Religion in whatever government there may be

To ask whether a religion is indispensable for men joined together in society is a question that accuses the human species of ingratitude, instead of attesting to its acknowledgment toward its creator. But to say that wherever man finds himself, he prostrates himself, calls on his God, whether through appreciation, whether through fear, depending on whether he is happy or unhappy, is to prove that, through instinct, he has recourse to the divinity; it is in appealing too unthinkingly to religion in the aid of morality, it is through multiplying gods and religions, through abusing the credulity of the peoples, that politics and priests have created impious men. God appears omnipotentin his works, without demanding anything from the recognition of his creations; it is thus that he forces us to genuflect: we should imitate God. Once man, revolted by intolerance, becomes impious, fanaticism combats impiety, and disorder arises everywhere. It should have been enough to ask the men of all nations: “Do you believe that there exists a God creator of the universe?” — But everything we can see attests to this, they would have answered. — In thiscase, you live like atheists when you lie, when you steal; for if a God exists, his eye penetrates within your hearts. Perhaps you do not believe that you will survive after this life? — We hope to, but we still have doubts. — Well then, in the state of doubt in which you find yourselves, you havetwo possibilities. If you live badly, you win nothing; if you live well, an eternity of happiness is awaiting you. Which possibility do you prefer? —The choice is not difficult; but you do not say that in living badly (according to you), we seek all the enjoyments of this world; and given that it is doubtful whether there is eitherreward or punishment after this life, agree that at least wehave been seeking enjoyments. —-You are strangely deceived on this point. Show us a wicked man who does not envy the happiness of the honest man; show us the man of good, the victim of the wicked, who, to the end of his life, remained

without consolation and without reward; show us a wicked manwho prospered to the end of his days, and for whom misery, illness, repentance did not cause him to cry out in despair on his deathbed; who did not say to those witnessing his torments, live as honest folk if you want to be happy; finally, show us a man of good who does not disdain with horror the success of the wicked man. — You are right: the man of good led to the scaffold causes more envy than the wicked man upon the throne.

In not going beyond the limits of the truth; in never stating that which we are not sure about; in calling on the sentiment of the conscience in order to assist in our judgments, we persuade men, and we never deceive them. Thesepure and universal dogmas would never have disunited men; onthe contrary, linked by the same religion, they would more surely have lived as brothers, because their conscience had approved the holiness of these words; because their instinctwould have confirmed at every moment the truths that were announced to them, and which were the same for all the earth. But politics, obliged to vary, to modify its laws to the extent that different climates and circumstances required; condemning in one place that which it required in another;…. politics and priests, I say, have cast men into confusion, in ceaselessly calling on divine order to in order to support these contradictions.

A fallacious prejudice warns us against the man who follows natural religion: he does not practice, it is true, any of the religions adopted by fellow citizens, but he worships God in his works; he recognizes his supreme existence, because he senses him in his heart. And this man is considered to be impious! No, let us never believe this. May I be pardoned a comparison between the spiritual and thematerial, between the sacred and the profane. Our weakness requires such contrasts; for not being able to compare two abstract beings, we are forced to make use of a real being in order to elucidate an abstraction. What, in general, do we have that is most dear to us in this world? Beauty,

certainly, unless we have become superannuated automata. However, although the worship we offer to beauty may have but one goal, and may be everywhere the same at its root, inhow many ways the preparations of the sacrifices are varied?Obliged to study the numerous folds of the belt of Venus which we desire to enjoy, how many pains, how many sighs, how many tears, how various the cults we offer to this goddess of our pleasures in order to merit her favor! If we change climate, we find once more beauty everywhere, but having different mores; we choose the homage which may flatter her most. Do we love her less although she appears in various aspects? On the contrary, her habits, her mores, her graces, her varied customs, only render her more dear and more piquant through the attraction of the new. Beauty is the object of our material worship, as God is the object of our spiritual and religious worship. Beauty receives our various homages, provided that we prove to her the reality of our sentiments. Making love à la turque, à la française, à la grecque, … all these cults are acceptable to her when they are sincere, because they all say the same thing; they all say, I love you, in different languages.

Without pretending to have made a very exact comparisonhere; without wanting to compare one cult to another, nevertheless, let us likewise allow men the freedom to worship their God according to the customs of their fathers,or according to their own will, if no abuses result from this. But this God must be the same for all, since he cannotbe but one. Let the Arab, in worshiping him, offer him his perfumes, to invoke him let the Lapp burn his resins; let the Italian offer him his melodious songs, the German, his nervous chords…. Men! Arising from the hands of the same God, it is time for the blindfold of ignorance and superstition to fall from your eyes; it is time for you to live as brothers, for blood to cease being shed in the name of a God who disdains your idiocies, or who, rather, wishes for you to punish yourselves, when you violate the laws of nature to which he has subjected you. Let blood likewise cease to be shed in battles over political opinions. Men!

You will always quarrel, I know: but have not the nations ofEurope trembled enough with horror at the sight of their blood being shed? Will we continue to be dupes of proud despots? When, then, will the men of all free governments agree that shedding human blood, for whatever reason, is a crime against nature? It is the moment of a general peace that friendly nations should grasp in order agree among themselves that, through a new tactic, in joining cunning with force, armies should tear down the walls, mutually selltheir victuals without which they cannot subsist, and that, forced then to give themselves up as prisoners, military combat should rather be gymnastic games instead of murderousbattles, where thousands of men slaughter each other. Then the songs of victory would no more announce the shedding of human blood, with the annihilation of the species; then the vows of the man of good would be fulfilled. Yes, the greatest monument to the foolish pride of man is war such aswe make it. What courage one must have to dare to say: Long live peace! when the field of victory is, at the same time, thetomb of a million men.

All the peoples of the most ancient antiquity had theirreligion; that of the Greeks and the Romans was a veritable dramatic fiction, appropriate to their brilliant imagination. If it had been possible to prevent the man of the people from acquiring the knowledge of the true God, creator of all things, it would have been this beautiful religion, as noble as poetic, that should have been preserved. But, once legislators adopt a fiction in order todeceive men, there is no end to their foolishness: also, while the Greeks adored Jupiter, Apollo and Venus, other peoples prostrated themselves before a cat, a cow, an onion.

After the establishment of the Roman church, the Florentine politician, Machiavelli, who did not love priests, said: “states which wish to preserve themselves, and not to fall into corruption, should, above all, maintain religion in all its purity, and always keep a great veneration for it: for (he adds) there is no better prognosticator of the

imminent ruin of a state than when we see the worship of Godin disrepute.” More than politicians, time shows us that menof al nations adopted some religions in order to worship Godin himself, or in his works; and the more educated men are ,the more divine worship will be simple and true.

After two thousand years of the Christian era, education, having become more widespread, comes suddenly to change our government. Our mores will necessarily conform toour democratic laws; and our religion, as pure as our political principles, will consolidate the great moral edifice for which France has just laid, for the entire globe, the solid foundations which thousands of years, cunning, progressive ignorance, can alone still destroy.

A sentimental and philanthropic religion, not directed by politics or priests, but by the heart of the man acknowledging his creator, such a religion seems to be that which now should be adopted by men devoted to the truth. Just as Jupiter, seated on Olympus in the midst of a thousanddivinities protecting mortals, was fitting for the peoples of ancient Greece and Rome; just as the God of the Christians, who died having been crucified by the impious hand of mean, and pardoning his executioners, asking of all,in his angelic morality, sweetness, patience, and resignation; just as, I say, this religion was fitting for the invading priests and successors of the Caesars, likewisetoday the man devoted to freedom seems to want to adopt a religion as true, as intelligible as his politics and his morality. In allowing everyone the liberty to follow in his temple or in his residence the religion of his fathers, a unique and pure religion, certainly, will be that of the manof good, and the most fitting to men regenerated through education.

From the point where it will be widely acknowledged among men that there is only one God creator of the universe, all religions through which he is revered, will beequally good in the eyes of all. But let us hunt from our

memory the old anathemas which distinguish the God of the Christians or of the Jews, that of the Egyptians or of the Muslims…..When we reflect on the brevity of the life of men taken individually; when we see them battle for the pre-eminence of their God, we think we are looking at an anthillwhich is fighting over a few centimeters of land at the verymoment when the wagon is going to run over the object being contested, as well as the combatants. Alexander had all philosophy books burned in order to halt the progress of thehuman spirit: it would be wiser today to cause to disappear all the theological documents which belong to the various religions, so that men can bow the knew before the unique God that speaks to their conscience, while abandoning, as dangerous to mores, all the superstitious rites for the choice of which they have not ceased to quarrel and pour outfloods of blood. But, they say, one must speak to the sensesthrough exterior objects which strike them: no. One must speak to the soul through the simplest cult. Man, inconstantthrough nature, is wearied above all by complicated things; a secret worry makes him desire to simplify them until he arrives at unity.

The sentiment of the divinity seems as natural to the physical man as do other sentiments for which we have more bother to prove their non-existence than to feel within us that they exist.

I have said, at some point in this work, and in a note,that we should have innate ideas, since we have innate sentiments; that is to say, sentiments which are in us, which grow with us independently of our will and our education. Here I will distinguish our positive sentiments, and those which we have the art to render negative, althoughthey are as positive as the others. The former are love of self, which makes us tremble involuntarily at the sight of the least danger; the idea of a God who has created us, and subsequently our feeling of appreciation for him, which constitutes religion; it is love which pulls one sex toward the other, and which dominates us even before we have the

seen the object which this sentiment appeals to.

The innate sentiments which we make negative are, the amour-propre which deceives us until we are disabused by experience and wisdom; this is the idea or sentiment of our death, which we know to be inevitable and positive, but which, through a continual and indefinable miracle we rendernegative through never affirmatively believing its very proximate send, unless we are at the very moment of the dissolution of our organs. It is necessary to observe that there are contradictions between the consequences that we draw from these various sentiments. For example, religion,that of the Christian, especially, tells us: Love all men for the love of God; while love of self cries out Love others for the love of yourself. The negative sentiment that we have our sentiment of our death is also in contradiction with our reason; for, after having deceived our whole life long the sick and dyingwho surround us, in persuading them that they would still live a long time, we take, in our turn, the road to death, and we let ourselves be reassured, as if we had acquired no experience regarding others through everything we saw and practiced. Let us concludes that the human ego is the first and best invention of nature; not only the human ego, but the universal ego of everything that feels, breathes, loves,is caressed, without ever saying this is enough, and which trembles at the least danger which threatens it dear existence. Let us return more directly to our object.

The idea of a God, we have said, is natural to men of every country. Let us add, that at the very moment where manbelieves in God, religion is already in his heart. Whether he manifests this through one religion or another, it is always to the same God that these various religions address themselves. After the reasoning which we have just laid out,a no-less strong proof that the sentiment of a supreme and unique God exists in the heart of man is the trust, the respect that we sense for every worshipper of the divinity aside from formalities of religion, formalities, which, on the contrary, leave us, among those who practice an religion

different from our own, with an almost invincible mistrust; show them to us under a certain layer of ridicule, which forces us, so to speak, to separate them from the human confraternity. In his synagogue, a Jew can make you laugh through his contortions, through seeing his head covered by a tamlai 192, or in seeing him grimace in an inn at the sight of a leg of pork. A Turk may seem odd to you as he grasps his turban with both hands in order to bow as many times as ordained by his Muslim rites193. The Christian monk may seem superstitious to you in leaving the company where he is in order to kneel and strike his chest three times at the soundof the angelus. But the man in every country who worships God while contemplating the universe, whether looking at the sunor the stars of night, creates in us, as I have said, a truerespect. When it was barely day, I was walking on the boulevards of Paris; I noticed an old man who opened his window, looked at the sky while piously raising his arms: I felt an inward trembling, and my eyes became moist. I asked myself, was this man Turk, Jew, or Christian? No. I saw the worshiper of a supreme God; I said to myself: this man is a man of good; whether businessman, artist, or lawyer, it matters not, he will not lie, he will deceive no one.

One reflection remains for me to make on this subject. Let it not be thought that I am asking men to change religion or faith; no. Let us adore the great Being to whom we owe our existence; let us keep the religion of our fathers, and let us believe that in no place was the apostate esteemed. For the rest, men of all religions can join and sing in chorus the praises of the same God: it is then that they are truly brothers; and that their voices pierce the ethereal vaults, and come to the throne of the Immortal.

192 (G): This is how they call the cloth with which they cover their heads. 193 (G): Is it to avoid drowsiness that certain rites prescribe multiple movements for the faithful? One must agree that the priests have thought of everything.

O God of the Universe! All beings that float in the skies, that swim in the floods, that march on the earth, or that drag themselves within its tenebrous entrails, sense your existence in feeling that they exist, not through theirwill, but through yours. All, without knowing you, thank youfor having given them life; man alone, forcing the capabilities of his reason, which you wanted to limit, wanted to analyze the infinite being that created him, and whose power he sees without being able to penetrate the secrets…… Halt, bold one! Wait, if you can go more deeply into everything. Retain, believe me, hope, without which thepresent would be insupportable. Consider the numberless victims of cunning, of perfidy, and those whom their sins condemn to suffer a hundred times the death that they in vain invoke. Will you dare to steal from them the God in which they hope? What will you put in the place of the one who consoles them in their torments? What reasoning can haltthe spontaneous cry which, in their unhappiness, they raise to the skies? You yourself, pitiless atheist, if an assassinstrikes you with a mortal blow in the midst of your impious reasonings, what will you do, what will you say, what is your first cry? You immediately invoke this God whom you have just denied; this God who, just for this thought alone,could strike you with lightning. But to great to hate, too strong to take vengeance, he has pity on your error, receives your confession, and pardons you.

Chapter 17. On man’s instinct

The idea of a creator being, the religious respect thatit inspires, the strict execution of the golden rule which orders us only to do to others that which we would like be to done to us, are the foundations of morality. But man’s instinct carries him towards all the knowledge that he can acquire; and, without propensity to materialism or atheism, philosophy loves to connect everything to the physical or tonature. It is a prejudice to believe that it is necessary to distinctly regard the universe either as a divine work, governed by its creator, or as an eternal machine forced to be what it is, subject to fatum; or that our earth, where everything destroys itself without end, and without end reproduces itself; that our earth, I say, that one of the portions of the universe that we know the most, is only an enormous polyp in which each atom has life, and of which manis part, with regard that within him that is material. According to me, the two propositions are but one. In creating the earth, God wanted nature to regenerate itself by degenerating; that the old age and youth of animated bodies should be two proximate situation points; that the wearing-out and restoration of material bodies was only one immediate transition….in this we should admire the power of the eternal workman, who made all things imperishable, although all perishes in appearance in changing in form. Arewe that which we are, because we are made to be such, or because we find ourselves to be made that way? It is all one. The author of things is no less great for having ordered nature to create each being finite in its genre, in obliging it to reproduce its semblance. But a blind nature, which nevertheless does everything for us in the best way, here is what is incomprehensible.

The hand that conducts the universe is also that which directs the instinct of man. It is this hand which, through the generations, holds captive the instinct of the brute animal, without it being able to perfect itself, nor

deteriorate with regard to its species; it is this which directs the fires of the sun in order to temper the climatesand the seasons; it is this which halts the winds, holds thetides of the sea to their prescribed limit; it is still thiswhich gives man that restless instinct which, constantly andin all things, obliges him today to search out something better than the day before: that which announces to him that, in other worlds, where his spirit already travles, he will enjoy perfections that he vainly seeks during the momentary and purgative stay of his earthly life; it is still this invisible hand which brings together the homogenous substances which seek each other and unite with each other; which lodges saltpeter far from all inflammable matter; which buries beneath the earth the minerals which are useless or dangerous for the common run of men194; it is still this, finally, which wants everything to be useful forthe great machine; and that, without resource, nor lever, nor pendulum, nor visible gears, it puts together with its coercive force; and, nevertheless, that everything perishes while regenerating itself, and that everything reproduces itself though perishing. One who does not see a God in this sublime theory, should tell us how with dice one can make a masterwork in painting, in architecture, in music, or in poetry. Just as we have the divine power say: Ego sum qui sum;likewise, each created being is, and can be no other than itis. Ternary power, how great you are! One . . .. God always the same: always. Two. ... the creation of beings. Three… their imperishability; that is to say, the term where nothing canfinish but in beginning once more: this is the image of the unending screw.

194 (G): Someday, perhaps, chemistry, in analyzing poisonous substances, and inexamining the soil that produced them, will know that they are only poisonous because they are separated from other benign substances, which have been expelled for some cause at the moment of formation of the former. The benign substances that would neutralize the poisonous ones should thus be found at a short distance from the latter: nature thus puts the antidote next to the poison. It is thus that burning climates produce the pineapples, lemons and oranges which refresh; it is thus that the excessive heat, which gives s fever, necessarily produces quinine.

Since on the earth, everything is subject to divine power, or that of nature, which God commanded to be that which it is, what do we note that is particular about the instinct of physical man, with exception made for his reason? Nothing more than in the animals. Man’s instinct is pure egotism; he is good when he is happy; wicked when he suffers: whence it happens that the happiest of men is always the best with respect to others. Nevertheless, the pain of illness, wretchedness, old age, sometimes make him sweet and submissive; but this is through an interested calculation, through dependence that he is thus; give him his full strength back, he will return to his dominating instinct. — Since, in order to be good, he must be happy, what is the term approximative to happiness? — It is that which is most reasonable in the world, the goal of all educations, it is the knowledge of the truth, as much calculated and recognized in the moral, as it is in our day in the physical. — What is moral truth? — It is that of instinct, in the forests; and that of convention, in societies. — Whence arise the continual moral collisions ofsocieties with each other? I have said, and I repeat – it isnature which revolts after having been subjected to social laws: one is only hanged for this: it is then that the law sacrifices an individual to the general happiness.

However, education, good or bad, rectifies the physicalinstinct of man, or renders him more dangerous in his instinct than the brute instinct itself: it makes a man witha solid character, a slave, or a despot. This is what has made a modern philosopher believe that chance and education decide on our talents, our fortune, and our fate. Among peoples without morality and without mores, I am inclined toagree with him; men, then, are only imitators, and like the sheep of Panurge, they only march through an impulse which is foreign to them, or to put it another way, their will, deprived of true documents, always weak and staggering, onlydecides to imitate men with a pronounced character; they follow, likewise, impulses for good and evil; their souls are, so to speak, on a pivot, and like the windmill, they

follow all the directions of the breeze. But let us know, then, moral truth, let us render it a pure homage, let us die rather than be rebellious to I; then man becomes himself; fortune, shining position, interest for his amour-propre; he sacrifice everything to his idol; proud at being “tune with him”, in vain will they try to drag him with contrary opinions; he observes the play of interested passions which make the others move, smiles with pity at their ruses; the awareness of a single one of their vicious inclinations, a word from their banal mouth, are enough for him to appreciate them.

Without the aid of morality, and especially of opinion that has not yet sufficiently manifested itself for the truth, we have said the instinct of man is pure egotism; he loves to dominate, to flatter himself, and be flattered. Thesentiment of his well being, which is innate in him, establishes at the bottom of his heart a little tribunal where amour-propre presides. Once he is become powerful, a crowd of stupid worshippers offer him incense, while the most devious only adulate according to the degree of perspicacity that they see in him, or imagine in him. Give in order to receive was always the secret treaty of amour-propre; this is almost the same in all men; if it seems much, it is because it is nakedly shown; if it seems little,it is because it is modified; if it seems less, or none at all, it is because it is absorbed by the virtues among whichholy vanity still takes the prize.

In an earlier chapter we asked whether the man of truthcan know the tortuous routs of the lie; here we could also ask whether the best of men knows those of amour-propre, andthe solution would be the same. With enough sagacity to be able to traverse the immense recipient of human amour-propre, which, like the barrel of the Danaides, can unendingly receive more numerous tributes, because they always enter while increasing the outlets by which they escape, the honest and educated man can know the labyrinth of ambitious passions; and, better than the ignorant man

without mores, he can regulate its effects according to justice and truth, and thus remain unmoved in the midst of the immoralities which surround him, or at least modify themin such a way, that he can enjoy sacrifices that he makes tohis perfected reason, the more that he has not enjoyed the exasperations of amour-propre.

Appreciating his strengths and weaknesses; reducing hisphysical and moral faculties to their just value – this is to prevent as much as possible the effects of amour-propre, which loves to go beyond the goal to which we can attain. From these continually tempered or repressed impulses there should result a moral aplomb free from oscillations; withoutthis salutary practice, an overwhelming uncertainty reins inthe heart of man. Yes, his unhappiness lies entirely in his indecisions; these stem from the lack of knowledge he has ofthe truth, and from the fact that he has not sufficiently calculated the final and inevitable results of his conduct. If his calculation is made in advance; if from these causes,these effects should be the result; if all unforeseen accidents are regarded as possible, the worst luck should nolonger surprise him, he should have expected it. But if he is not fixed through is morality, an interminable combat, which almost always is decided by chance circumstances, is what he experiences. A poorly calculated ambition makes him desire glory, riches, and probity, advantages that are almost always incompatible. Sometimes he abandons one to runto the other; if he possesses this one, he regrets the priceof the sacrifice that that one has cost him, and he ends up running in alternation to the altars of his three idols, which he cannot serve at the same time. It is thus that the desire for positions and wealth dries up the talent of people of letters and artists; it is thus that sumptuous luxury announces the fall of the best houses of commerce. I repeat, the unhappiness of men is in their indecisions; let us make ourselves strong with truths, let us frankly doubt when we are seeking for them, let us be ourselves in the midst of all the opinions, and let us thus brave the storms of life. If one subtracted the moral existence of the

greater part of men, the time which they disposed of according to the advice of others, and not according to themselves, how many men dead of old age have not lived ten day! If in the current of our life, we only counted in the number of our actions those directed by our reasoning, our arrangements, our results, and upon which no man, no chance had influence, the total of our own actions would be very small in number! In interrogating our conscience, in asking ourselves what is the truth of the position where we are, what is the goal that makes us act; is it just or unjust, is it truth or lies; reducing men to this option, under penalty of improbity, would be to untie the Gordian knot of the lie; this would be to walk with great steps towards the supreme morality. Yes,

Pour l'homme tout est grand, tout est félicité,S'il a pour passion l'auguste vérité195.

Man! Whoever you may be, rich or poor, monarch or shepherd, philosopher or ignorant…. Multiple sighs, which in vain you think to be fortuitous, will escape from your oppressed chest, if you violate, in whatever way, the truth. Yet another thousand sighs will be hurled from your soul, if, through stubborn efforts, you are abject enough to try to separate it from the divine breath that created it. Know theinstinct that guides you, that presses on you, that commandsyou, vain man! Kneel before the august truth; kneel before your God, prostrate yourself in his immensity!

195 TN: For man all is great, all is felicity, If he has as his passion the august truth.

Chapter 18On time

If God had begun, something would have preceded him; a power would have made God, and God would not be God; for hiscreator, more powerful than him, could destroy him after having created him.

God is thus from all eternity; and time (for there is no being existing without the time which contains it and measures it), time, just like God, is from all eternity.

Can something not have begun, and nevertheless, finish?— No more than that which is not can be without having been created.

All that which exists without having been created is eternal, just as all that which has a beginning must end.

God made man in the same system as all of nature of which he is a part: he created him to perish materially; in perishing, he reproduces other creations of which he contains the germs; and just as the human germ was in nature, it returns to nature.

Can we comprehend how man, who is one with nature, receives in being born a germ more perfect than all the germs destined to produce the other creations which are inferior to him? No. But we do not explain any better why the tiger and the lamb, the cat and the mouse, the spider and the fly, are endowed with different germs and instincts;so, different that the former devour the latter; or so, analogous, that the strong swallow the weak in order to be nourished by them196. For the rest, this law is common to allbeings; all that exists in nature is nourished by a

196 (G): What analogies, what various sympathies, antipathies remain for us to discover! See the chapters on physical sympathies and antipathies; and that on moral sympathies and antipathies.

substance analogous to its own; the world is a polyp that devours itself in order to support itself. What a dreadful idea! What a sublime idea! which demonstrates at the same time the need that nature has to destroy in order to preserve itself.

Material man is too much subject to the laws of the physical; heat, cold, dryness, humidity, dominate him overmuch; he too much feels the mechanical to be able to hope that after his death the elements of which he was composed will be able to ascend to the heavens. What does his earthly mass have in common with the aerial fluids?

Just like a torch of wax or of resin diminishes from the moment it is lit; likewise living is to go to death. The lighted torch is a like an animated body; the torch is consumed by the flame; all that it had of the material remains on the earth or in the first regions of the air, andthe flame returns at each moment to the universal fluid thatvivifies nature. Likewise, also our mortal spoils return to the terrestrial elements, while the spiritual soul pierces the ethereal vaults in order to rejoin the creative and intelligent spirit from which it emanates. — But just as the flame returns at each moment to the ignited fluid, does a part of our soul separate from us to each of our aspirations? — No. The soul is indivisible: we must not confuse the soul with the animal spirits with which we are endowed like all natural beings; these spirits evaporate, and we gather them thereafter; but the soul remains impassible and always the same. — If it is the same in all human individuals, why have we never seen a child compose anepic poem? — Because the ideas that it encloses, even an epic poem, are material; it is through the organ of the senses that the soul acts; if the senses are not yet developed, or if they are crippled, the soul remains in statu quo.

Matter, in general, is vivified by the spirit containedin the vivifying fluids that penetrate the globe, without

which matter would be inert. According to the type of spiritthat vivifies the matter, material bodies are endowed with various more or less eminent faculties. Minerals, vegetablesgrow and perish; they are also vivified by a sort of spirit that communicates motion and vegetation to them; but humankind is not only vivified by the spirits common to all natural productions, it is in addition animated by a superior spirit that we call soul, which gives him the faculties of reason, of combining the past with the present,and of transporting himself into the future. If the soul does not act in the same way in all men; if there is sometimes less distance from this beast to that man, than there is from this man to that man, it is because, between them, the material organization is different. For example, sound has but one law of existence; nevertheless, tighten orloosen the string that produces it, the sound is higher or lower, it is no longer the same tone: it is thus for the soul and the body.

Since man alone has the idea of a God; since his intellectual and spiritual faculties direct his material instinct; since he is, in general, more superior to the beasts than they are to the vegetables, the spirit that animates him is other than that which vivifies the animals. Since, finally, man reunites, in his vast domain, almost allthe diverse instincts given to the animals, and adds to thisintelligence about everything that is before his eyes, and the intelligence, also precious, of being able to doubt the things that he does not know – these eminent qualities show that he is animated by the purest spirit. If he loses by degrees, and accidentally, his faculties; if he is restored by nutrition, this is through the absence or presence of animal spirits: these spirits are more or less abundant, andhis faculties then more or less pronounced, but his soul is unalterable. The man who suffers may be crippled in his corporal faculties; but one moment after the crisis or the fainting, his intelligence is reborn: this is a light that has been darkened, but which cannot be extinguished. — Andif the individual dies? — To die! this is to give full

existence to his soul, to deliver it from its captivity, it is when we die that it lives most fully, it is then that it is freed and mounts to the skies. In distinguishing the material faculties where corporal forces are necessary, withthe faculties of the soul, we will remark,

1. that from man to man, there is more intelligence inthe philosopher on his deathbed, than in the athlete fighting in the arena;

2. in contrasting man and beast, we will remark that the sick man who can scarcely raise his arm, has more intelligence than a lion with all its strength;

3. that when dreaming, when our senses are at rest, ourspiritual intelligence awakens;

4. that among the moribund, when matter is almost dissolving, we note moments of sublime intelligence that astound onlookers. Finally, we have said in the foreword to this work: “The soul is chained to the body until its destruction; the body is an envelope susceptible to gradual perfections; if the envelope is coarse, the soul appears butlittle; if it is subtle, the soul is seen almost without covering.” Let us conclude with regard to this matter, thatman is an earthly creature subject to the laws of the physical, like all productions of nature, and that he feels strong or weak depending on his abundance or lack of these spirits of the second and of the third order 197 . That he is, in addition, and he alone in nature, endowed with a spirit of the first order that we call soul ; that this intelligent soul should be a part of the immortal beings which dwell in the skies, perhaps the same as (but we say this with humility), perhaps even a part of the divinity; but that this soul remains in all its strength although our body becomes weak and dies; that it aspires, even, to the dissolution of the body, like a slave seeks to break his chain in order to return to his origin. Man! If you strive to prove the contrary, you are certainly worthy of perishingentirely. If, in spite of yourself, your soul soars toward a197 (G): See the chapter titled: Some physical probabilities of the immortality of the soul.

happier future, what ignoble sentiment could stifle you in this sublime and consoling impulse?

We have just looked at time from the double perspectiveof God and of eternity. It is here that the scholar would review the succession of ages from all historical perspectives; but we, who are only discoursing on various matters through a natural sentiment, and who, in the course of a rather extended work, have not been able to use three pages in citations, are lacking in the means given by erudition, and will continue to reason through the sole inspiration of instinct.

Whether we move backwards toward prior centuries, or wepenetrate into the future, the time of the duration of the world is incalculable. What are a thousand past centuries, and a thousand future centuries, in comparison with eternity? This is like a drop of water that the thirsty birdtakes from the Ocean: this is a drop of water which sooner or later will return, in order to be lost once more in the immense floods of the seas, as two thousand centuries are lost into eternity. And if two thousand centuries are lost in eternity, what then is the time of the longest life of man? It is incommensurable in its slimness, as eternity is in grandeur. Nevertheless, we would like to appear in this immense succession of infinite time; we would even like to be superior to all the people who have preceded us; we wouldlike the present to surpass the past; that the event which occupies should bring a new era, and that without shame we can articulate the first year! If the Indians, the Egyptians, theGreeks, the Romans, the Turks, the Christians, the French (having become republicans), have thus divided time, and if our successors imitate us, from physical, political, or religious event to event, we will unendingly create new eras. Year one! man of the day! It is only your pride that surpasses your nullity!

History shows us six thousand years; astronomy gives usthe probability of four times more; this fraction of

eternity is still very little, and we say the first year ! connecting everything to ourselves alone, as if the sun onlyshone for us; we name our months as if we were alone on the round surface of the globe whose seasons vary depending on how the sun gives us his vivifying rays; and if it thus renders all the respective localities, what does the name ofthe month vendémiaire mean for the country where the vine is unknown? Brumaire where there are no mists? frimaire where one sees no frosts? nivôse where it never snows? And thus forother month-names, which are all in contradiction with the seasons of distant lands198. The unit of time, as for weights and measures, is certainly that which we should wish. Given the immensity of time and the diversity of climates, numbers are the only denominations which are appropriate, since it does not lead into error. It is certainly from abstractions, that mathematical verities result; and if this is the case, where is the truth? Is it in the abstractions? In one, then a thousand consequences that are related to them and modify it? Nevertheless, abstractions favor the vague imagination of man, which is only grand in his suppositions; the positive must intimidatehis vacillating reason, as repose dreads movement. As long as the meaning of words is not as determinate as the value of numbers, which always increase by one plus one until infinity; or the values of the notes of music which, on the contrary, always diminish by half from the whole to the half-note, and from there to the quarter note, etc, until the ear can appreciate the briefest sounds (i); as long as, I say, this exactitude does not exist in terms, there will be uncertainty in our ideas. Let them give us, then, a dictionary of simple ideas, and of complex ideas; let it be reprinted every year; let the institute add here what it hasdetermined regarding the value of the words and the ideas; it is in this way that we will arrive at the solution of the198 (G): I know that you will object that the names of our months are only such for France, and that each country where the climates differ from ours can have different names. — Are you sure that, even for France, you are not in contradiction? Are the frontiers of France with Spain, or with German, the same?You have worked for Paris alone, and the temperature of Paris can change.

great problem of metaphysics and morals; that is, of human understanding. With regard to ideas and words which are abstract by their nature, let us reserve them for the arts of the imagination, for the language of the gods. These godsare so far from us, that it is not surprising that our language becomes lost, or that we lose ourselves in our language, in wanting to penetrate their divine essence.

If we view time through its connections with morality, we will say, with all moralist, that the past is no longer with us, that the future does not yet belong to us, and perhaps never will be long to us, and that only the present is in our power. However, se should profit by the experience given by the past in order to regulate the present, and to prepare the future. The animal has but one time: he is entirely in the present with a weak memory of the past, and entirely indifferent to the future. But if manis able to make himself a delicious, although factitious, present, his regrets about the past, his fears for the future cast a lugubrious crepe over the present: and the sophist dares to ask wehether the animal, as passive as improvident, does not have a better inheritance than man, endowed with such high faculties.

Nothing is as precious as time, whether to repair past defects, whether to profit from the current moment, or for preparing the future. The loss of time is the greatest loss that we can have. Lost time is never found again; we can rediscover a moment more or less, or one as favorable to ouroperations as that which we have lost, but this is no longerthe time that has passed. We should say with the proverb: Such a thing is as impossible as seeing the same moment twice.

He who gives his time to the unfortunate is more worthyof praise than he who gives them a part of his purse: one isrid of the poor man by giving him a crown; but to give him one’s time in order to relieve his misery, this is to be more than generous, more than charitable, it is to be good par excellence.

Time alone will bring the making of morality; only timecan form enough philanthropes, able to resist that greater number which are egotists and liars, in order to then force them, through the weight of general opinion, to abandon their lying idol. But in order to come to this desirable point, it is necessary for morality to be purified through its very excesses; man, tired of lying, must return to truthas his only refuge; the prejudice which prevents him from denying, must itself be denied.

Formerly the people was enslaved, superstitious, ignorant, and credulous, but these excesses came to it in part from men cleverer, and more instructed than they: let us ban deception from the class which dominates through the gifts of the spirit; let their rallying cry by Truth, and thepeople, always subject to the opinion of the sages, is on the right road. Let us voluntarily abandon political clubs, associations of Freemasons, pious confraternities…...; let asingle association include all the societies that I have just mentioned – that of the lovers of the Truth. Let a single column on which will be written this sublime word be in the midst of their temple. All men will be admitted therewho think that the truth alone can create the happiness of humanity. Let the egotist, the libertine of good faith, and subjected by their passions, of which they are the victims, be received there with joy; it is the restlessness of their disorder which bring them; and it is a festival day in Heaven, says scripture, when a sinner returns to wisdom. Hypocrisy alone is banned from the temple of truth: man transported by his passions changes with them; but the hypocrite cannot change, since it is through lack of good qualities that he gambles with them; since he does not have the germ of the passions which he affects to have. How many immoral men, witnesses of the pure conduct of their godchildren, participating in lectures which will always have as their goal the perfection of some point of morality,in bringing it closer to the truth, lectures which will be, if one likes, intermingled with a harmonious and simple

music199, how many deviant men, whom ennui of themselves, or curiosity, had at first brought there, will return, pulled by the attractions of virtue! All the academies of the sciences and the arts will bow before this august association. What is science without love for the truth? What happiness can be hoped for without it? Why seek in detail that which is entirely in a single thing? Love of thetrue includes everything: perfection in politics, in the sciences, in the arts, in commerce, and in morality. Oh, holy enthusiasm for truth, realize my pious chimera! You alone, across the shoals of life, have led me without remorse towards old age, and soon I will see my tomb open without dreading the reproaches of my conscience. No, this book, fruit of the reflections of my entire life will not atall be a vain work; the men who follow me will draw forth from there the celestial light announced at all times as theonly torch which leads to happiness. What is a vice the error of which one frankly avows, next to a hypocritical virtue? This is the man led astray by the senses who seeks his path in the midst of the shadows: the other is the cunning man, the scoundrel who affirms God in order to consummate a crime. Yes, I have often pardoned the error made in good faith; but the cunning man of all the States, be it Ulysses himself in his astucious wanderings, lifts theheart of the honest man. Sooner or later the deceit is recognized. What does the time that masks and still separates the crime from its evidence do? Nothing. Time passes, the guilty man dies; but history engraves his misdeeds and turns over his name to infamy. Fallacious man, do you stupidly imagine that humankind is your dupe, becauseyou have just deceived an honest man? Come, you are only deceiving yourself, vile wasp of the honey of the elect! Your lies have a thousand faces, but all of them imprinted from each other; always a false smile, a sinister calm, a sideways look, a poorly assured look from your heteroclitic countenance, reveal your falsity. Truth, on the contrary,

199 (G): The perfected organ, as we have indicated in our Essays on music, vol. 5,p. 424, will be fitting for this temple.

has but one aspect, although diversified, playful in the innocence of early ages, more severe, more imposing in mature age, more persuasive at all times: never will the hideous features of hypocrisy, lying and deception take on the touching features of truth, no more than a mask of wax or papier-mâché reproduces the mobile features of an animated nature. —- But could they tell us how truth, insusceptible to all the modifications which wound it, whichis only one in all the moral positions where we find ourselves; how truth can be felt in the same way by men whose passions, whose characters differ in a thousand ways according to their climate, their education, and their age?—We will examine in the following chapter what the reasonablemodifications that truth can tolerate in men of different countries and different characters may be; but let summarizewith regard to the subjects discussed in this chapter.

Time is eternal like God. Life is only a unity; our life, as long as it may be, is only the repetition of a single moment, varied in its forms, and the same with respect to its basis. The beats of our heart form but one series; from the first beat to the last, there is unity. We have often asked this question: it is better for our happiness for time to seem to flow rapidly or slowly? Here is what we can answer: we love life, but we desire that the time of this life seem short and rapid. ---Where does this contradiction come from? — It is not one: we love life, as long as it is happy: in misfortune, we bear it with impatience; we run after pleasure, we flee from pain; it is in pain that time seems long to us; it is pleasure that it flows rapidly. The use of time gives it all its charm; in abandoning ourselves to tumultuous passions, this is spending life in the storms; in giving ourselves to laziness, it is passing life in lethargy; in varying our studious and especially virtuous occupations, time flows calmly: it seems short and quick, like a fine day.

NOTES FOR THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER.

(1) When I compose music, it often happens to me during the night, and when I am half-asleep, that I submit a melodic motive to several different rhythms; it is then that my headis seeking to perfect my work without involving myself with it. Nature shows me this melody from all of its connections,and once I awake, I have only to choose with respect to the words. It is the same with the terms with which we express our ideas; let us subject them to analysis, and let us fix them, if we wish to understand ourselves, and to be understood by others. When chemistry will have perfectly analyzed and ranked by order the substances of which the human body is composed, and whose which neutralize the effects which kill us, universal medicine will be close to being known. The art of the doctor will consist in seizing the right moment for operating with success; it will not be less capital.

(2) The more men conceal themselves, the more they fear to explain themselves on their own account. While all our actions show that we love each other to madness, we must pretend to be indifferent to ourselves – no more inexhaustible mine of lies than that of disguised egotism! Iwas saying one day, at a minister’s table, that it was impossible to die without having lied, when one loves prettywomen. See the chapter on the Lies of love. It is especially inconnection with lying, that one could say to all men gathered together: “Let him who has never failed through thefirst stone.”

Chapter 19.On the truths relative to the various positions of man

What are the truths known by the man of nature? -- Thenatural man knows that he exists; he feels the need to get sustenance, and seeks food; after being comforted200 he wantsto reproduce himself, and then he gives himself to repose (1). The need to reproduce is renewed more or less dependingon the force of his temperament, the climate in which he lives, the abundance and the quality of his nourishment. In the land where this is favored by nature, the human species prospers and is perfected; in that in which it is exposed toexcess of heat or gold, and where the earth is stingy with beneficent productions, the species degenerates. Abundance is not at all harmful to the natural man – he quits without regret the tree that has nourished him, or the woman he has just loved. The policed man has more imaginary needs than hehas real needs; for him, when nature is satisfied, amour-propres is not at all, and never is; to invade everything, possess everything, in order to humiliate his peer, and to force him to ask for help, this is his prideful happiness. In everything, only mediocrity is needed for civilized man for him to be well; abundance leads him to every excess. Theman of nature does not leave mediocrity, since he never abuses abundance: this is why we have said moreover that ease was more favorable to the propagation of the species than the luxury of riches. But there are few or no countrieswhere man lives in isolation; he runs after woman, who fleesbefore him so as to be seized; love attaches mothers to their children, who would perish without much-prolonged assistance; fathers are attached to both; thus societies begin which are increasingly bonded through the habit of being together. 200 (G) Although we have said several times that local and particular truths do not at all destroy truth in general, we have thought that a subject to importantfor the moral should be observed with regard to all the facets which will successively present themselves to our reason.

Truth would be pure and simple in the natural man, if he could fix himself in this estate; but beginning with societies which were only just taking shape, to ours, which are the most policed, what nuances, what customs, what religions, what laws, what various governments! How can truth be one, in the midst of so many different regimes? Letus say then that necessity makes the law everywhere, and that this law is the strongest.

There will never be parity of forces between the

physical and the moral; it is almost always the latter that cedes to the former. Policed societies are purely moral; it is in order to resist the violence of physical forces that we institute penal laws; but, on a thousand occasions, the physical regains its domain in such a way that no repressivelaw can impose on it; and the law, in this sole case, dares to kill the individual that it despairs of subjecting to itsyoke. Here are some particular circumstances where the moralcan do nothing against the imperious physical. You are strong, I am weak, you lift a hundred-pound weight, I can only lift one of thirty; the strength which results from ourtwo individuals is different, but equally true.

I arrive on a distant island, the king of the country, according to custom, comes to offer me his wife; if I refuse, he will think that I am disdaining her, because she is without merit, and he will disdain her in turn: I thus accept his offers, and I make everyone content.

Our vessel is immobile in the midst of the ocean; the murderous calm will make us all perish of hunger; we unanimously decide that one of us will serve to feed all theothers, and that fate will decide the choice of the victim; the circumstance controlling us is horrible, but it is true;the man who takes part in this cannibal repast, whether fromthe substance of his friend or his brother, is no more culpable than the traveler who eats his chicken at an inn. These opposites of general truth, which become local truths through the force of circumstances, are too palpable for

anyone to be able to call them into doubt; and never has themost severe theology dared to address these questions, whichit would have been forced to resolve as we have.

The passions, which differ in man according to his temperament, modify truth in his view. Through the prism of seductive passions, truth appears with different nuances that attenuate or increase its real essence.

The sources of the temperaments are in the physical andthe moral. The sanguine, phlegmatic temperament, and that which participates in both, which we will call mixed, renderthe individual lively, slow, or moderate. The climate which we inhabit, the nutrition, early education, the estate whichwe profess, our connections, or habits – these all contribute forming or deforming our temperament or character. But the truth which appears with various facets, with respect to the individual, is not less one, constitutively. For example, let us show a picture, let us have a piece of music heard by three men endowed with the characters which we have labeled; however perfection the production may be, the sanguine man will find that it is notso warm in expression, that it does not have enough movement. The phlegmatic will not sense enough repose; and the moderate man will not recognize that perfect midpoint that he seeks and he loves. Once more, such is human mobility, once more, I say, fatigued, so to speak, by their habitual sate, and desirous to momentarily escape from it; struck by these same productions, the sanguine will cry: I love this tender and vaporous picture – it relaxes me. The phlegmatic will say: I love this strong and vigorous composition; it warms me up and animates me. The moderate man will love one or the other of these works, according to his current necessity. Nevertheless, in the midst of these oscillations, the truth is one; the moment which makes it known arrives, it is fixed by the sages. It is thus for our judgments in all the situations of our life; it is through these physical and moral clouds that we must unveil the truth for each thing.

In closely observing nature, we would often find that

moral happiness, this metaphysical being, depends, more thanwe would want to agree, on our happy physical position.

Hélas! Qu'aux coeurs heureux les vertus sont faciles!Dubelloy.

The more we multiply our moral connections, and the more we cast ourselves on the waves of illusions and prejudices; reducing these connections and these innumerable and factitious needs, for the most part, is to increase the realhappiness that then predominates within us.

Throughout life, one must, through temperance, seek health: this is the chief good. Without health, even youth languishes; maturity only produces bitter fruits, and old age crawls by in sorrows. After health, physical needs are insignificant, if moral desire does not join with them in order to trouble us. Health, nutrition, and love, are our three capital needs: their urgency is such, that imagination, in agreement with reality, often combines to satisfy these primary needs of life201. In fact, if imagination makes invalids, we also see, especially in the whirlwind of the great world, the imaginary healthy.

Without mentioning the manna in the desert to which imagination gave every flavor, we agree that exercise gives appetite, and that this is not difficult in choosing nutrition.

With regard to love, it is through love that infinite space is opened to the imagination. All the paper that exists, with all the printing presses in activity, would notsuffice to trace nightly and daily novels of youth, of 201 (G): One could say that it the imagination plays with factitious needs above all, rather than with those of the first necessity. — I agree that imagination makes Spanish castles from frivolous objects; but I also think that the more that our needs are pressing, the more our imagination enjoys satisfyingthem.

maturity, and of old age202. Love entirely rectifies our being; it gives boldness to the most fearful; just as the timid deer, the honest girl disturbed by her desires, loves the remote places where she sighs without constraint; in thesavage places, she no longer fears wolves, nor thieves: in her candor and without premeditated design, we would say that she is awaiting some happy encounter, and that an honest girl still loves to expose that which she is far frompermitting to be ravished from her. Before concluding this chapter, let us move closer once more to our object.

Although truth is modified in various ways, it is one, let us say once more, since, in spite of its modifications, it always and especially as the well-being of humanity as its result; and truth from which constant evil resulted would certainly be a real evil.

Especially where men have mores, they worship Good, respect father and mother, the laws of the State, and the proprieties.

The principles of physics, philosophy, of the sciences and the arts, are universal; each object is modified, but always the same at root; if men misprize each other, let us say along with the businessmen, error is not accounting. What doesit matter, in fact, if in worshipping God, one looks to the sky, or bends toward the earth? That, in order to honor one’s dead father, one burns him on a pyre, or buries him inthe earth, or that, one gives him one’s entrails for burial?What matters it if the law prohibits in one country that which it decrees in another, since everywhere it represses existing abuses? Since man abuses everything, everywhere there is abuse, and there is need for the law. In supposing a people without passions, and so virtuous that it becomes acontemplative automaton, one would need, in this case, to reanimate its energy through arousing enemies for him from his lethargic repose. 202 (G): See the chapter on the Influence of love on mores.

The principles of physics, of philosophy, of the sciences and of the arts, are universal, we have said; but their effects are respective to localities; heat in one country is cold in another; the Muslim philosopher is allowed polygamy, which is the custom where he lives; procedures, sciences are applied to the needs that are perceived; the principles of the fine arts, according to thetaste one has for them; painters, sculptors, imitate the nature that they have before their eyes; the laws of harmony, everywhere the same, receive melodious modifications according to the expression of the passions, and their degree of energy. According to this general principal, nothing, as it appears, is more abstract than thetruth; nevertheless, nothing strikes us with more conviction, and as suddenly; nothing persuades us like the need for modifications of the truth, received by an entire people. In arriving for the first time in a country, and hearing the recitation of the preexisting abuses, one sense to what end the laws were established there, as one divines,in a moment, the propriety of the customs; one is penetrated, so to speak, by the novelty of the customs with the new air that one breathes; and unless one makes a point of being refractory, on adopts the mores of the country where one resides with the same facility that one gives themup in moving elsewhere. Man is truly cosmopolitan; he only adopts anything conditionally, although he seems to adopt everything when the impression comes to him from nature, necessity, and example; and, in spite of these innumerable varieties and these local differences, the truth remains one, pure, intact : such is the beauty, that we love in all climates and under all customs, to which we pay homage in all languages, and which we everywhere adore.

NOTE FOR THE NINETEENTH CHAPTER. (1) A proof that one could give that life and death are but one thin, just as a baton with two ends is only one object, is that the loss of vital fluid is always followed by

repose, or sleep, the image of death. Rousseau told women to observe their husbands when they were leaving their arms,in order to know if they were truly beloved: he could have added: moderate, above all, the jouissances of the man by whom you wish to be loved for a long time; it is less important, in fact, to observe whether the vase of liquid isfull or empty, than to maintain the sacred fire.

Chapter 20.On physical sympathies and antipathies

We have just proved that the truth is always one, notwithstanding the various modifications that it undergoes.The physical and moral sympathies and antipathies attest to this as well; evil, as well as good, all goes to prove the truth: hating evil is to sympathize with the good; to cherish the good, is to have antipathy towards evil. If you object that personal interests, the force of the human ego, drag along a number of individuals to the detriment of the public good, we would say, that the wolf as well, which is good for nothing, neither during its life, nor after its death (for the odor of his pelt recalls too much the aversion that we have for him), that the wolf, I say, who devours through instinct, who kills even after being sated, is also driven by his individual interest. When man wants tobe wolf, when he is constantly the enemy of all public morality, let us wage the same war on him as we do on the werewolf, let him be pursued even into his own fort, and lethim be slain with the sword of the law to relieve the public.

Do physical sympathies and antipathies exist? If they exist, what connections do they have with our moral sympathies and antipathies? It is in this chapter and in thefollowing chapter that we will try to develop these two propositions.

All known materials are, among themselves, homogenous or heterogeneous; there are scarcely any substances that, toa greater or lesser degree, do not seek or avoid each other.Their analogy is often so great, that they unite as soon as one brings them near each other. Their antipathy203 is sometimes so strong, that one cannot mix them; and between these two extremes, there are, certainly, a thousand 203 (G): I sense that the word antipathy is only fitting for animated beings, but I do not know the one which says the opposite by analogy: it has been quite some time that our dictionaries should, in showing us a word, indicate that one which is positively in the opposite sense.

approximations, a thousand distancings of different forces, different nuances, almost imperceptible, even to analysis. Homogeneity or heterogeneity is thus universal in nature: the history of minerals and vegetables proves this to us.

If the organization of matter is complete enough to form animals, they love each other, detest each other, devour each other, or are indifferent, according to whether their substance and their needs give them an instinct of love, hate, or indifference204. If it is the human being which forms nature, this being, animated all at once by the immortal, intelligent spirit of the first order, nevertheless participates in the influence of the substancesof which it is composed; with the exception of his soul, which is not material, there are between the matter of whichhe is made and that which surrounds him, the same connections or disconnections, the same sympathy or antipathy, the same homogeneity or heterogeneity as in all substances in general.

Since the substances of which all bodies are constituted, and which we are part of, are in more or less intimate connections, and since those which have no affinitywith such substances, may have affinities with many others, this theory must be known perfectly before we have the rightto deny certain physical affinities, certain moral connections, in order to have the air of being one of those savants who laugh at everything, or who doubt nothing. A prudent doubt is appropriate in such a case; it is this moderate doubt that leaves a desire to be instructed, and which adopts nothing definitively before having recognized causes through their effects, in as much as possible. If bodies, although separated by a certain space of air which

204 (G): Is it through love or hate that we eat each other? —By analogy, certainly through love. — Must the eaten love his eater a lot? Can there be loveon one side and hate on the other? — Questions difficult to resolve, and which Ileave to the physicians. The moralist can only see irresistible force in the physical, egotism in the moral, and on both sides, the instinct for self-preservation, love of self.

unites them, still have sympathetic connections between them; if, as we are assured, experience proves that our emanations, our transpiration which is said to be unable to be perceived, and which becomes highly perceptible when observed under the microscope; if, in a salon where there isa number of people, these emanations, different in nature, seek each other, join with each other, or avoid each other, is this not a proof that there is a physical analogy betweencertain persons, and antipathy between certain others? And if these connections exist between different bodies, should there not exist more intimate connections between us and ourselves? I mean to say, between the constitutive parts of the matter that is separate from us, and those that we continue to possess? Who would dare to say up to what point we must be disjointed, distant from our own emanations in order to be absolutely and physically separated from them? Do we have experience of this? Is it demonstrated? No. The birds, which have, in general, a hot temperament; birds, we have all noticed, seek to do their necessities in a fresh water in order to be refreshed. The bushes, which lean over riverbanks, are whitened with their dried droppings that theleaves have retained. What doctor would see with indifference the living blood of a man cast into a burning fire? What surgeon would ever, without imprudence, cast there an apparatus soaked with the substance of a wounded person? Are there doubts? Let us elucidate them. Let us knowwhat these sympathetic dressings are of which tomes speak. Let us know if it is true that a wound that is sucked visibly heals. In my natal country one causes warts that appear on the body to disappear by rubbing them with a pieceof bacon rind, which one then puts on the earth, so that it will rot promptly. In addition to the usual remedies, one is healed from jaundice by urinating in cow’s milk, putting a pint of the latter every day in one’s chamber pot. I can see my reader laughing at this point, and especially the Aesculapius who is thirty years old. Let us laugh, why not,but let us reflect after having laughed. Do we know all the connections that exist between matter and matter? Assuredly not. Do we know the hundred-thousandth part of the resources

of nature? No; we have scarcely begun to learn its sublime doctrine. Copernicus also made the men of his time laugh. If,before his experiment, Franklin had said: In stormy weather, I will make lightning strike wherever you like, we would have thought that he had gone mad. Once again, let us reflect, let us analyze, and above all, let us experiment. Let us not believe lightly, but let us not be too hasty to reject, in the physical, above all, what which seems inconceivable to us today, and which we perhaps will adopt tomorrow with admiration.

I scarcely dared to believe it, but I saw with a woman (who was not a mother, but a merchant in fashions, who had workers with her) a lazy young woman who went shopping dressed negligently; we warned her uselessly of this; I willpunish her, said her mistress; she spied on her, threw red ash on her dejection, and a few days later, I was told that this girl was attacked by a violent dysentery.

Piron, author of Métromanie205, who had, no one doubts it,a very vigorous head, preserved, in a cabinet full of aromatic spices and essences, his secretions for a period ofthirty days; and, ashamed of his mania, he went each night, and although very aged, to throw them in the lavatories thatwere on the fourth floor of his house (I). Was it some idea of antipathy that prevented Piron, from communicating too promptly, and through emanation, with his entire neighborhood?

After the obscurity and the doubts which still reign regarding these objects; after the concern which they cause for those who occupy themselves with them, and reflect on them, it is to be desired that a learned company should observe this part of the physical, more important than we realize, for the good of humanity; and that its results, proor contra physical or moral sympathies and antipathies,

205 TN: La Métromanie, ou le Poète, comedy in 5 acts, performed for the first time at the Chateau de Berny, 1737, and then at the Comédie-Française, 1738.

should be confirmed by reiterated experiments. Probabilitiesare not sufficient in either the physical nor the moral, where errors are always dangerous; they are only permitted in the fine arts: there, in all cases, the pleasure that oneobtains is an uncontestable truth. It is time to fully address our question.

Beings which are only living, but insusceptible of reason, such as plants and beasts – do they have connectionsbetween them of physical sympathies and antipathies? Yes. Inthem, nothing is opposed to the attractive and repulsive virtues of the matter from which they are formed206. In animals and in man, I would not be at all astonished that the weaker being should fear, like a abyss of perdition, thestrong being, and which has a positive charge, as demonstrators in physics say; and that this fear should not produce in it, not a hatred, but, on the contrary, an irresistible love, an unhappy attraction which forces it to identify itself with the greater force that attracts it. Thence results the fatal penchant of animals that are attracted to their enemies, which devour them. From this also result irresistible passions in man, unless he overcomes them by morality and by his virtue. This axiom would then be true: Those who love each other too much, should fear each other, for, among two individuals, the weaker gives the other his substance.

We may say, perhaps, that in the act of generation, thetwo individuals lose more or less equally; yes, but a third being results which survives the two generators, male and female. In general, if one loses, it is to the advantage of the other; if two lose, in the matter of generation, a thirdresults; finally, time devours everything, by making

206 (G): I would prefer that we say of plants, that they are vegetative; of beasts, that they are vivified; and of men, that they areanimated. The word animal is generic for all the beings which have a greater or lesser degree of instinct and of reason; but it degrades man below himself, and elevates the brute beast too much.

everything return to nature.

Sympathy is thus always mixed with some antipathy, for one must dread that which destroys us, in whole or in part. There is thus more antipathy than sympathy in the physical world and in the moral world, and we should not be surprisedthat there should be more ill than good, more vices than virtues, more distress than happiness among men.

In relation to each other, we are all dominated by a material force greater than that which we have less of. Let us note the piteous expression of those who feel the imposition of a yoke of respect by magnanimous beings. I know that the moral position of man, the place that he occupies, the good and the bad that he can do, give him a superiority which would soon be annihilated, if he lost his rank and his positions: nevertheless, like the lion, so imposing on man, that he takes from him the use of his senses; likewise, the man endowed with magnanimous senses makes a small man even smaller, and impose on him to the point of momentarily stopping his respiration, and renderinghim perplexed. There exist, thus, connections, physical sympathies and antipathies between purely material beings; among vivified beings, like the animals; and among men, who are vivified and animated at the same time 207, unless the morality of these latter ones should destroy them in whole or in part.

The falsest, the most relaxed, the most corrupted morality, immorality itself, then – can it absolutely destroy the influence of physical sympathies and antipathies? I do not think so; a little always remains. It from this that the continual uncertainties of man are born; uncertainties more overwhelming for him than the worst of all determinate states. In this situation, man finds himselfbetween two struggles, one physical, the other moral; and not being able to decide on anything, he is, in some way, 207 (G): See note no. 4 in this chapter.

tossed, buffeted by these two powers which render him null in his faculties and his desires.

I am far from wanting to send us back to the abc’s of our knowledge; but we can remark that today we have gone from total credulity to absolute incredulity; I would not like one or the other, but the evident truth based on experience. It is neither sorcery nor magic that we wouldlike to revive, but the science of the Magi, who, as it appears, knew more than we about these sublime subjects. Finally, it is experimental physics, as scrupulous as possible, which we would like to be rendered evident. Physics is to magic, as we understand, that which day is to night, the truth to the lie, the most beautiful site to the decorations of our theaters.

Let us now move on to moral sympathies and antipathies.It is here where the labyrinth of prejudices begins; one would need an entire work to observe them in detail, and nota chapter. Nevertheless, let us use all our care, if not to exhaust an inexhaustible subject, at least to clarify it, toelucidate it to a desirable degree. We will not say everything, certainly, this project would be presumptuous: while men reflect, these subjects will be for them an inexhaustible source of analysis and results.

NOTE FOR THE TWENTIETH CHAPTER.

(1) Capron, excellent professor of violin, and husband of Piron’s niece, told me this fact. “We used to tremble for hislife at the end of each month,” he added, “when we would hear him get up, go up and down the stairs in the middle of the night, and without light, which was, moreover, rather useless for him, since he was almost blind.”

Piron wanted the marriage of his niece with Capron to

only take place after his death. “The cares of your household,” he said to her, “would make you neglect your infirm uncle.” Nevertheless, being penetrated by their attachment for the celebrated old man, they secretly marriedand lived together; through this subjection, Capron had acquired the habit of speaking so quietly that one could scarcely hear him. The poet always pretended to be unaware of this marriage; however, he said to his niece: “I heard some noise this morning in your chamber.” “It was the cleaner, my uncle.” “Ah ! very well. Upon the death of Piron, his niece and his nephew found in his will: “Item, I leave objects N….. to Capron, my niece’s cleaner.”

After having regretted the death of the celebrated man,we talked differently in Paris regarding this article of Piron’s will. One said that, in pretending to ignore the marriage of his niece, he obliged her to always take the same care for him in his old age. Others, who claimed to know Piron better, not very egotistical, although old, hard of body, in spite of the mania which we have just mentioned,his head full of old stories, assure us that he only pretended to ignore this marriage in order to provide more happiness for his nice, whom he loved tenderly. Did he think, with Lycurgus, that love needs ruses and mysteries in order to continue for a long time, and gallantly? He perhaps valued even further this matrimonial dogma of the Spartans, and believed that if our laws permitted secret marriages, all women, then would be considered to be honest and secretly married; and that, without scandal, they could deposit the fruit of their hymen in a public place, splendidly supported at the cost of the State, whence, givencertain evidences, both for the child and the mother, the parents could remove their children at will. It is certain that this law regarding the hymen would be favorable to morality, which would no longer be wounded at its most delicate point. It remains to be seen whether, fundamentally, disorder would be greater than it is today; and if it would be better to make contracts that we violate,than to legitimate a problem that we only apparently avoid.

See the chapter on the influence of love on mores.

Chapter 21. On moral sympathies and antipathies

In observing what distance one finds today between the moral man and the physical man, one is equally astonished bythe progress toward his perfection and his corruption. What a distance between the primitive man, as we suppose that he must have been, and the philosopher! What a distance, greater still, between this latter and the corrupt being of the societies. The first is brutish, egotistic, disdains allrelations with men, or rather does not desire them at all, because he has few needs, he is for us an abstract being, because he is almost a stranger to abstractions208. The second is purified. The third is a mixture of the elements of the other two: it is excess of nature and excess of art, joined to shape a monstrous being.

It would seem that man must have made terrible efforts to corrupt himself to this degree, to have only preserved from nature its functions of the greatest necessity; no, hisprogress toward evil, as toward good, are the work of time and prior centuries. Just as movement impressed on water is prolonged in rounded ondulations from the center to the circumference of a basin, likewise, moral influence is communicated, by example, little by little, from race to race; and habit, once acquired, becomes, as we say, second nature. Everything is metamorphosed in the eyes of the factitious being; for him, candor is stupidity, concealed vices are virtues, frivolities amuse him, pure pleasures weary him, he deranges everything according to his depraved tastes, the earth no longer produces foods for him to

208 (G): This resembles a paradox; nevertheless, the natural man is only reallyabstract, with respect to us, because he understands nothing, or very little, about abstract qualities, adjectives, which for us modify everything. If the savage could, for a single moment, understand and reason as we do, he would alsosay, that we are abstract in our ideas; that we extend them too far for them to remain pure and immaculate.

fashion.

The air that we breathe at our spectacles would be fatal, they say, if the time of their duration was tripled209; likewise, the dishes at our tables are prepared, quintessenced to such a degree, that a grain more seasoning would make them poisons; the almost mephitic area of the spectacles, and our dishes, have precisely what is needed tonot be mortal.

Have the pleasures of love retained, for us, more original traces? Even fewer, perhaps; but in this, let us give thanks to art which surpasses nature. No, the uncivil aspect of a savage couple, abandoning themselves without reserve to their physical needs, does not support the opposition of the voluptuous boudoir, where two lovers, educated by love to give foreplay to their happiness, know how to multiply the fleeting moment.

But if, in some objects, art has rectified nature; if the pleasure of love has been purified, perfected among honest and sage folk; if trees, methodically pruned, produce betterfruit; above all, if the majestic tree of the sciences and the arts offers the glorious gifts of the genius of man and of his immortal soul…. what real losses do we not experience, through being too far distanced from our naturalsphere! What irreparable ills are caused for us by human societies crammed into a single place! Let us lift, further,for a moment, the curtain that hides from us the turpitude of the great cities – we will see man, so-called civilized man, dishonoring his being by excesses of all kinds, when the means of finding education and happiness are available to him everywhere. What a hideous spectacle is the beau monde, where not a sentiment is not put into commerce 209 (G): After having analyzed the air of our spectacles, which last more than three hours, physicians have recognized the truth of this fact. Nevertheless, the seasons, the degree of cleanliness of the spectators, should give different results. During the time of permanent assemblies of the French people, it was through the use of vinegar that one gave the air its salubriousness.

without being dressed in lies! There, all is comedy210, everyone can see it; everyone knows that basis of the drama is immorality; but it matters not, it plays a great role, weneed it, we caress it, although deep in our hearts we scorn it. Soliciting, lying, intriguing, making deals… Gold, gold,is the general cry; with gold one does everything, one gainspositions, women; one even buys virtue, in the eyes of the vulgar whom one deceives.

What then are our supposed sympathies and antipathies in society? The effervescence of the passions; of the connections of amour-propre that our interests solicit and effectuate; sympathies that are so far from natural, that with a little art one could make them be born as one presents the interest of a drama.

Our moral world is a land where illusions are continual; time, place, physical or moral position, everything combines to fascinate our eyes; and having recognized the illusion, we still hang on to it so as not toadmit that we have been deceived.

Fortunate women know well how to embark in a public

carriage without any other need to travel. The woman whom you would not have paid attention to in a company strikes you if you find her sleeping in a wood.

Theatrical illusion singularly favors factitious sympathies: the actress who inspires nothing in the real world seems like an angel who transports you if you see her on the stage. Love loves obstacles and contrasts; always in tragedies, our triumphing heroes are smitten by our princesses whose family they have massacred, whose palaces they have burned.

Molière, who knew the art of putting the passions in playthrough their contrasts, often shows us a charming woman 210 (G): Draw the curtain, the farce is over, said a poet in expiring.

treated rudely by some old relative, who is unable to appreciate her; then we envy him this treasure, and the author inspires more interest than if he had been prodigal with praises for the woman he wants us to love. We always take the side of the interesting victim, even when she deserves her stern fate.

Our blows of sympathy or antipathy are thus, most often, only moral combinations brought by chance; the man of the people loves all the great ladies; the latter only surrenderthemselves through corruption. Often the woman whom you possess no longer sympathizes with you; if she is way, the sympathy returns. It is clear that these caprices do not come from nature, but from amour-propre. It is so powerful in man, that one would say that he only loves in order to then subjugate the woman whom he regards as a victim. However, blows of sympathy exist, but it is necessary for the physical and the moral combine to make them arise; one without the other is, for us, like an unregulated appetite.

Nature has only general results; morality, particular views. All that piques our amour-propre easily goes to our head. Clarissa had not loved her Grandison; she wanted to subjugate a Lovelace, either him, or another. The physical, I have said, has only general results; in fact, see a man withflourishing health, and he is electrified by a hundred beauties; sick, he is without desires.— It is our connections of sensitivity, you will say, which govern our moral inclinations; it is through our sensitivity relative to that of this or that individual, that we act in this or that other manner.—This may be true; but let us get to know men and the various modifications of their sensitivity, before thinking that we are in connection with them. This one weeps, because his sensitivity stifles him: but he is too sensitive for certain things, and not enough for others;he is too partial to be just in anything. This other is piques by moral severity, which he owes uniquely to his physical insensitivity; he is not sufficiently compassionatein order to live with men who all need indulgence;

nevertheless, he believes, he wants to be just in all his actions, and we should consider him such a man. This other, finally, weak and without character, is affected by everything; his too general sensitivity makes him weep, because we neep, or because we do not weep.

In the midst of this physical and moral labyrinth, let us agree nevertheless that there are privileged beings who seem to reunite all the qualities that we like to dive to novelistic heroes. Since they are endowed with youth, beauty, spirit, grace, nobility in manners, valor, wealth and generosity, there is no individual who does not sympathize with them, and who is not charmed by them. But there are others beings so disgraced by nature that at theirapproach we feel disgust and antipathy. Do these various sensations come from the physical or the moral? We may believe that that they stem from both; and the happily endowed being pleases everyone, even he who possesses none of his qualities, while the latter is generally displeasing.—If the bad seeks the good, and the good avoids the bad, is there then sympathy on one side, and antipathy on the other?— Why not. I think that the good, par excellence, such as God, and all the beneficent qualities that emanate from him, should be loved and desired by all. Hell loves heaven from which it is separated, and if it blasphemes against it,it is through despair. But, finally, is there analogy, then between opposites, if bad loves good? Just as there is between hell and heaven, there is, I believe, real antipathyof the good towards the bad, and forced antipathy of the badtowards the good. If bad could have the upper hand over the good in order change its nature, it would do it; but good avoids it, bad despairs, and makes war on the former. This is perhaps what Scripture means to say, and it is through metaphor that it represents the good and bad qualities of man, under the labels of good and bad inclinations; it is ofthe physical substances composing man that it speaks emblematically to the residents of Judea, so far distant then from the natural sciences.

Since our current state differs in this point from that

of nature; since good and bad are everywhere mixed with its mysteries; we have lost our real rights to the sentiment of physical sympathies and antipathies; we can only experiencesthem now through a nuage of prejudices; we should only feel them enveloped in a thousand moral reactions which steal from us their reality and utility. But (we have said this atthe end of the preceding chapter, and we repeat it at the end of this one), in spite of the corruption of our mores, nature has preserved some rights to physical sympathies and antipathies in us. Here below, all is made up of types of matter that seek out or avoid each other, and it does not depend on us to change the nature of beings. Let us listen, then, to the voice of instinct; it is that of the oracle which speaks for nature. Let us listen, then, to the public voice that tells us that everywhere that men are joined together, they are unanimously agreed to respect morality, founded on the laws of the country where they live. In all that which is honest and pure, let us follow the penchant that guides us, and let us avert our glances from that whichstrikes us disagreeably. In the happy age of innocence, let us surrender ourselves to sweet sympathies; in maturity, letus give the example of a regular life accompanied by happiness. In the time when our senses grow heavy with age; venerable old age, take a sweet and wise woman to serve you;surround yourself with beautiful youth (1); its gaiety, its activity re-animate you; its vivifying influence corroborates your old years.

NOTES FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CHAPTER. (1) In youth one scarcely seeks advanced age, you will say:

La jeunesse aime la jeunesse,Comme la rosé le zéphir211.

Through need, through sympathy, certainly, the old man approaches the young, next to whom he can only gain, but the211 TN: Youth loves youth, as the rose loves the zephyr.

young man gains nothing. There is thus sympathy from the oldman for the young, and the contrary from the young to the old; and it is only through caresses, generosity, that an amiable old man can keep his late and young family near him.With regard to his children, his nephews in the flower of age, duty, virtue provoke their cares; nevertheless, the rich old man, whose last dispositions are ignored, is certainly the most sought after.

Chapter 23.That one can only judge men by the results of their conduct.

It is not the conduct of man that one must observe the most attentively: it is the results of his conduct: here is where we find a true accounting. There are hypocrites who act out the virtues, but everything is revealed with the result. There are fine speakers who are dazzling, but their logic fails with the result. There are swindlers who impose through their residences, their furniture, their meals, and their tone; but everything disappears with the result. I said to one of these abortions of fortune: Every day you should put an écu aside in order to take the coach. In digging up a stone, yousay: for thousands of years, perhaps, this stone was buried beneath the earth, and nevertheless it returns to the surface. The best-concealed defects are finally noted; and likewise the hidden crime appears in order to brand the guilty one, during his lifetime, or when he is in his tomb.

To arrive at the moral result of the contemporary man, we have examined that which he was, that which he is, that which he should be; that is to say, that we have examined his past, his present, in order to have the probabilities for his future. Here, it is the opposite which we must do: not being able to recapitulate the particular actions of the manwhom we barely known, we should see that which he presently is, in order to know that which he was: we must have recourse to the results of his past conduct.

Men’s conduct is often tenebrous or indeterminate, but the results of their conduct appears distinctly. This one, who stole from the State twice, without being suspected of brigandage, is discovered and punished after the third theft: this is a result. This one, in the arts or in the sciences, employs the talent of the third and the fourth in order to make his first work; through attention and caresses, he finds educated folk who work his field for him;but finally, he becomes confident enough, duped enough by his own petty merit to believe in his usurped reputation, he

works alone and makes a work that reveals all of his ignorance: this is a result which enlightens us about his previous labors. This one, over the course of two years, pretends to have good mores in the companies in which he is received; but, after having monopolized attention and consideration, he seduces the wife or daughter of his friend: this is a result, this new Tartuffe was deceiving you.

The difficulty is thus knowing whether this man or thatis deceiving you, or is acting in good faith. In order to have the solution of this moral problem, let us always ask if he has given results; if these are evidence of his moral conduct, or only elements. The English, who are two, three hundred years ahead of us in results, because they were freebefore we were, because the instinct of the island-dwellers calls for liberty; the English, I say, have a hard time welcoming someone into their intimate company. One can certainly bring them letters of recommendation in which theysay (according to the custom) that the traveler merits consideration and protection – they only believe this conditionally; they want to witness the actions of the new arrival, they want results of his current conduct. Recommendations for England are only good for a supper. While among us in France, the people of bon ton run after pleasure and variety – they more easily welcome little-knownforeigners; but these imitators of our mores are not the nation; it resides particularly in the honorable merchant. There, the store, the warehouse, the office are for all comers; the parlor is for acquaintances; but the interior ofthe family is only accessible to relatives, friends, to those who have shown the results of their conduct and their mores.

When, under the reign of Louis XIV, they recommended someone to his minister Mazarin, his favorite question was, is he happy? This bon mot makes considerable sense in politics, where sometimes it is necessary to march toward one’s goal, whatever the cost may be, but, in morality, it does not mean so much; in appearance one can be happy in

vice, but beware the result! However, if they tell you that this man is loved, generally esteemed…..After how long a time? I will say. Does he still have a thirst to arrive? Is he still burning with the fever of his amour-propre? Does itgive him this activity that leads to great things, that makes great men? Laudable emulation, certainly, but it is certainly in one’s study that one must have it. Out of ten thousand who have this desire, how many have fallen by the wayside? Will we caress and grant consideration to all thosewho have the desire to be great? We would have too much to:to the results, once more, this is the infallible rule. And what if the spite of not piercing high enough makes this man, so caressing, so amiable, into a serpent who betrays your secrets, and shreds you? Without expecting ill, let us wait for the good to be effectuated, for the result, it is through proofs that we know the man.

This painter, you will say, is a much greater draftsmanthan the other painters: — Let us see his picture. This musician is much more learned than his confrères: — Let us listen to his music. This master is the leading master with regard to education:— Show us his students …. In the sciences, in business, in morality, let us run…or rather letus await the results; this is where one finds the stumbling block of amour-propres which are unleashed in every sense; after having taken a thousand forms, this is Proteus at bay, and forced to retake his original form. Let us remember the qu a-t-il fait of the Englishman who was attending a sitting of the French academy, in observing it is members, one after another212.

In the prime of life, man is only amiable and gay, only loveconcerns him, and our existence is the result of his pleasures. A very important and first-order result, certainly;; but the man of his age acts through instinct, and his moral principles vacillate. In his maturity, his determination is set; if he is not something, he will never be anything, except in particular cases. This is the age of 212(G): See the chapter on Artists, Scholars and People of Letters.

proofs, has he proved something? Then believe in him. Is he still searching? Let us wait till he has found and proved.

Old age is the physical result of life; then judgment is sure, although the body has need of support. Then reiteratedexperience shows us all things as results; a wise old man isa moral encyclopedia to which youth should refer with as much confidence as respect. — But, you will say, old age seems to be the enemy of the pleasures that youth runs after; youth flees its remonstrances and its ramblings. — Itis right to do so; loving pleasure is so natural! It would take a few words on either side: Will I do well in choosing this thing? — No, I protest, should more often be the question and the answer of the young and the old.

The rather laconic style of this chapter shows that we are dealing here with results: all results are brief. After having traveled for a long time among propositions, distinctions, divisions, abstractions, when everything is seen and analyzed, everything finishes and should finish with yes or no.

Before concluding this chapter, we will ask whether, waiting for too long a time for the results of men’s conduct, we are not throwing ourselves into a continual defiance between one and the other, and if this defiance does not distance us too far from the sweet trust that is sodesirable among humans? No; for I believe that it is better to testify to men that one does not know anything, or that one knows little, more trust than distrust; but, in awaitingthe results, our prudence should set some limits. Let us restrain ourselves from marked distrust; it kills the efforts that the man who is as yet undecided can make towardthe moral good. I have not yet found a man who is wicked enough to deceive me after I have given him my trust, after having said to him: You know such a thing, I do not know it at all, would you guide me? Let us not doubt, if the wicked man is in a company where he is given consideration, he will make efforts to live up to the honorable opinion that one will

have of him; if one scorns him, he has nothing to lose, and gives in to all his wickedness. I am not saying that we mustaccord to this wicked man that which only belongs to the good man; nor that we must likewise accord to the little-known man that which only belongs to proclaimed probity; butthis is in our gestures, our glances, certain subtleties; inthe sounds of our voices some nuances of accents that we cannot described, and whose expression can be sensed. For example, a gracious smile, accompanied by a noble and restrained countenance; a handshake followed by a respectfulinclination of the head.... ; these reticences of the heart which would like to express its feelings, and which is restrained by uncertainty; everything says that one would like to love, esteem; but that one neither loves nor esteemsdecidedly yet, and that one awaits the result of that which one is hoping for. Showing a precocious joy, based on a hopeof a good result, can never humiliate us before we are known.

To return always to the sacred precept which we will only abandon at the close of this work, that the final result of man is his love for truth; just as the final end of his degradation is the habit of lying. Yes, love for thetruth is the true result of wisdom; in all countries, all estates, all religions, the following aphorisms can enlighten us about the general morality of man.

1. If he is truthful in everything, whatever his talents, his faculties may be, he is a perfect man213.2. If he lies, he is a craven, a scoundrel.3. If he capitulates with the truth, he is ignorant, a nothing, a man with prejudices. 4. If he remains undecided between the true and the false, between good and evil, he is sick.

But, you will say, if man is egotistic, if he fears

213 (G): Let us observe that immorality cannot be truthful; this is as impossible as stopping time.

death, if he only confronts it with bravura, that is to say,through a convulsion that he has, and which then carries himto his instinct, should it seem surprising that he should sacrifice the truth to the fear of losing or compromising his life? — This is because truth is not highly acknowledgedby all; it is because a prejudice towards honor is not seated on the necessity to be truthful, that there remains an ambiguity between true and false, just and unjust, between being and seeming. Let us frankly avow how much we love life; on this capital subject, no bragging, which we scarcely dare to hazard before our doctor; let us trample underfoot the mask of lying wherever it may be, and everything is repaired.

When true morality is consolidated among us, woe to he who would still feign! His more or less transparent hypocrisy devalues him in everyone’s eyes; and in order to preserver ourselves from his impious race, like the tree which does not produce good fruit, let him be cut down and thrown into the fire. Let us descend into our heart; the torch of truth is not yet entirely extinguished; there always remains some spark of this sacred fire. We feel a true love for the truthful man; and the most political scholar, Machiavelli himself, gains more of our admiration than our esteem. Deceiving man in order to make him happy is to degrade his nature; to teach him to love, to respect the truth is to bring him closer to the gods.

Chapter 24, and Final. Conclusion.

In issuing from the hands of God, or rather, from the imagination of the poets, man enjoyed perfect happiness, saythe apologists for his innocence. I want to believe them; but the numerous societies were not formed then; when they were forming, what use did he make of this innocence, already degenerated due to the continual instigation of his amour-propre? Dominate, subjugate, crush his peer in order to reign alone – here is his history. Does the history of all the parts of the world tell us that this is denied? Thathis dominating instinct has changed? no more than that of the tiger and of the lion have changed.

In this first division of this work, we were thus to showthe coarse man, pushed toward the domination that is naturalfor him: despotism on one side, slavery on the other, this was the true state of humanity submerged in ignorance. But the instinct itself of man is the need to educate himself. After having admired some sages, some claiming to be sorcerers; having bent the knew to the great and to the priests who enjoyed all the goods of the earth, his education became more widespread: then (and this is what thesecond division contains), man made the proud to bend the knee.

Once enlightened, only being able to be plunged into the shadows by some moral revolution, or some physical revolution of the globe, all men must today say to themselves: ignorance put us in chains; it is in order to escape from slavery that we have suffered all the woes inseparable from political revolutions; what will we become?What will we do? What will we be now? After having passed through two equally baleful periods, one through the degradation of the species, the other through the floods of blood that had to be shed to reconquer the rights of man;

no, let us say, there is only the moral truth recognized andrespected by all (such as it is trace in this third section), which can make us hope for fleeting happiness.

I have invited men to the charms of the eternal verities with all the strength of which I am able: my task is fulfilled. If some other knows a more effective means of general happiness, in the name of humanity, I ask him to reveal it to us. Let him speak, august Truth imposes this law; the view of our woes condemns his criminal silence.

END OF THE THIRD AND FINAL VOLUME.

Grétry On Truth Table of Contents

Vol. 1

Foreword VIIHistorical introduction XXI

Chapter 1. Reflections on research into the Truth 1Chap. 2 On popular instruction 13

First Period.

Chap. 3. On the danger of blunting the sensitivity of Youth 28Chap. 4. On our first impressions.Chap. 5. Reflections on the two preceding chapters.Chap. 6. On public instruction

Second period.

Popular education….ibid.

Chap. 7. On public instruction. 72

Third Period.

Choice of an estate….ibid.

Chap. 8. On the price of emulation. Chap. 9. On public happiness.Chap. 10. On the need for active surveillance on the part of the Government to consolidate Republican spirit.Chap. 11. Prejudice to be destroyed; means to this end.Chap. 12. Prejudice needing to be established; means to this end.Chap. 13. Recapitulation and continuation of the preceding chapter.Chap. 14. On the vices and immoralities that the new order of things can destroy.Chap. 15. On princes and courtiers.Chap. 16. What it is to be capable.Chap. 17. On retail commerceChap. 18. On wholesale commerce.Chap. 19. On pretty women.Chap. 20. To be loved, it is necessary to love much?Chap. 21. On present mores.Chap. 22. To give the tone.Chap. 23. Open allure is the only good allure.Chap. 24. On the respect owed to old age. Volume 2.

Chapter 1. On artists, savants and people of letters.

Section 1. On artists.Section 2. Theatre of the Arts.Section 3. Ancients and moderns in opposition. Section 4. Reunion of sciences and arts at the National Institute.

Chap. 2. One can honor talents, without fomenting amour-propreChap. 3. One cannot have everything. Chap. 4. On the connections between our sensations.Chap. 5. On reputations. Chap. 6. Development of the preceding proposition. Chap. 7. On the results of ignorance or instruction.

Summary of the same chapter.Chap. 8 That one should not allow one’s happiness to be blemishedby the behavior of the wicked, of liars, of scoundrels and of sotsChap. 9 That men cannot at all times be governed by the same meansChap. 10. On the dangers of eloquence.Chap. 11. On the chief virtues of the RepublicanChap. 12. On the influence of music on mores. On national holidays.

1.Opinions of the ancient philosophers on the first of these two matters.2. That men are different everywhere.3. That men, differing in their climate and language….should be sensitive to different genres of music.4. Influence of the various climates on the men who inhabit them.5. Regime desirable between different peoples. 6. Means that music offers us for tempering and tuning the passions of different peoples.7. On musical institutions.8. For the peoples of the south. Ibid.9. For the peoples of the temperate regions.10. For the peoples of the North.11. For the savage or not very civilized nations.12. On national holidays.12. On particular Educators or Masters with pensions.

Chapter 13. On permitted lies.Chapter 14. On lies of love.Chapter 15. On the faculties necessary between two individuals, in order to be able to contract bonds of friendship.

Continuation and conclusion of the same chapter.

Chap. 16 On the influence of love on mores.

1. Love being the dominant passion man, it should, from this perspective, have the leading influence on mores. Ibid.2. On the Societies established by Love3. The ancients defined love well4. On the Samnites.5. Among the Gauls.

6. Love is the support of man in slavery, and in general of the unhappy man.7. The greatest woes arise from misdirected love. 8. The excesses of the man of the people harm future generations.9. These excesses will be reformed by more widespread education of women. 10. Man at every age protected by Love. 11. From his birth.12. The adolescent also protected by Love.13. How it is necessary to favor marriages. 14. On the regime of the spouses.15. Necessity of divorce. 16. Man protected by Love into his old age.

Chapter 17. Continuation of the same subject; new example on the sources of lying, and on the means of protecting youth from it. Chapter 18. On the danger of imprudently repressing the passions.

Volume 3

Chapter 1. Whether one obtains more from men through a reasonabletolerance, than through overmuch severity

Chapter 2. On moderation.

Chapter 3. Can the man of truth know the tortuous routes of the lie?

Chapter 4. How and why Jean-Jacques was that which he was in his mores

Chapter 5. On alterations in our character.

Chapter 6. On semblans

Chapter 7. Researches on the two virtues contrary to dissimulation and aux semblans

Chapter 8. On the force of the Example.

Chapter 9. On the mania that certain people have for giving advice, and on the danger of receiving it.

Chapter 10. The means of taking, oneself, the good part in difficult circumstances.

Chapter 11. On moralists.

Chapter 12. Various maxims on different subjects.

Chapter 13. On Death.

Chapter 14. Why, at whatever age, happy or unhappy, do we find sofew men who want to begin to live again?

Chapter 15. Some physical probabilities of the immortality of thesoul.

Chapter 16. Of the necessity for a Religion in whatever government there may be

Chapter 17. On man’s instinct

Chapter 18. On time

Chapter 19. On the truths relative to the various positions of man

Chapter 20. On physical sympathies and antipathies

Chapter 21. On moral sympathies and antipathies

Chapter 22. The greatest ascendant that we have over men is that of virtue

Chapter 23. That one can only judge men by the results of their conduct.

Chapter 24. Final. Conclusion.