Wilde__rousseaus Doctrine of the Right to Believe

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I I . — R O U S S E A U ' S D O C T R I N E O F T H E R I G H T T OB E L I E V E .

B Y N O H M A N W I L D E .

To adm it the tru th of M me. de Stael 's judgmen t onRousseau that " il n'ait rien invente mais tout enflamme," isnot to adm it its whole truth. Lik e all great preachers hewa s conservative in doctrine, his power lying in his appealto the instinctive beliefs to which he called men back, ratherthan in any novelty of idea. H e was not an innova tor bu ta reformer. Th e ideas with which he inflamed the hea rtsof his generation were the primitive beliefs of the simplestdomestic pieties, pieties the value of which had been ignoredby th e cultured of his day, but the p ractice of w hich hadbeen part of the common life of the race.

But though a contemner of reason and a foe to thephilosophes, Rousseau has yet his place in the history oftho ug ht. If his beliefs were old, the ground upon wh ich hejustified them was relatively new. In his passionate defenceof these beliefs which to him were life, we have one morephase of the perennial protest raised by faith again st thelim its of thought. Forbidden by the philosophy of his day tocherish even the meagre hopes implied in the m ostiattenuatedof Christian theologies, and unable to find in even the mostreligious of systems sufficient upon which to build his faith,

he abandoned reason and found in feeling the organ of re-ligious tru th . In this emphasis upon feeling and the righ tto believe he seems to anticipate the tendencies of theprese nt, but so unsystem atic is his teaching th at , in spite ofthe studies his bi-centenary has evoked, his doctrine of beliefseem s not yet clearly defined. To und erstan d tha t d octrineit is necessary to take into account both the content of hisbeliefs and their relation to his temperament.

T he dom inant factor in Ro usseau 's thou ght is his op-timism, not the pedantic optimism of popular theologyextracted from Leibnitz and ridiculed by Voltaire, but an

involuntary, temperamental optimism, the expression of hisincurably romantic temper. Sensitive and dreamy from achild, he had developed the hab it of ecstatic enjoyment

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ROUSSEAU'S DOCTRINE OF TH E RIGHT TO BE LIEV E. 13

of solitary natu re. The world as felt in these dcliciouslydelirious m om en ts was for him the real world. T he m iseries

of life, keenly as he felt them in his own experience, seemedonly to drive him more surely into this world of his dreams,and to fix in him more firmly his belief in its reality.Against such revelations of the beauty and goodness of life,,the mere facts of evil were of little avail. The Lis bon e art h-quake, so shattering to the complacency of Voltaire, leftRousse au unsh ake n. If me n had been living as na tureinten ded them to live, they would not have h ad such loftyhouses to be shaken down about their heads, or such citiesto be destroyed, he suggests. B ut it is not on facts th at his

optimism rests. I t is not a m att er of hedonic induction bywhich th e various happinesses of the world are pieced to-geth er into the vision of a perfect wh ole. On the contra ry,it is th e vision of the perfect world th at make s rad iant itspa rts. " Au lieu de tout est bien, il vaudrait p eut-etre mieuxdire le tou t est bien, ou tou t est bien pour le to u t." * Inothe r words, belief in God is the condition, not the res ult,of finding life good. Rousseau makes some att em pt to arguethe problem of evil in historic ways, but such argumentshave little interes t for him. H is own emo tional certainty is

sufficient.This optim ism becomes explicit in his belief in God. In -deed, it is hardly to be distinguish ed from it. This gloriouslybeautiful universe with which he is in love can only bethought by him as the expression of a personal will and theembodiment of a moral purpose. " T h is being who willsand can perform his will, this being active throu gh his ownpower, this being whoever he may be, who moves the uni-verse and orders all things , is w hat I call God. To this nam eI add th e ideas of intelligence, power, will which I ha ve

brought together, and that of kindness which is their neces-sary consequence, bu t for all this I know no more of th ebeing to which I ascribe them . . . . I see God everywherein his w ork s; I feel H im within myself; I behold Him allaround me; but if I try to ponder Him Himself, if I try tofind out where He is, what He is, what is His substance, Heescapes me and m y troubled sp irit finds n ot hi ng ."

2This

indenniteness of conception allows Rousseau to combine adouble set of attributes in his idea of God, the naturalisticand t he m oral. By heredity and trainin g he is a GenevanProtestant and a worshipper of the just God of Calvin, whoseexistence is the corner-stone of the m oral order. Th is Godis a transcendent God, an essentially personal God, whose

1Lttter d, Voltaire, 18th August, 1766. ' Emilt, Book IV.

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-will is the standa rd by w hich we distingu ish th e evil fromthe good. I t is this God whom R ousseau preaches in t he

Emile and confesses in his Letter to the Archbisho p of Parisand Letters from the Mountain. It is by virtue of this faithth a t he can still profess himself a Ch ristian, though bannedby Geneva and Ro me. B ut the God of his experience is ofby no means so definite and austere a character as this.T he object of the raptu res of the sentim ental n atu re wor-shipper is vague and ill-defined. H e feels, he feels intensely,but w ha t he feels h e does no t know. H e is carried out ofhimself and lost in a delicious sea of being. Th ou gh t andwill give place to em otion and the d istinctions of subject and

object are lost. Tho ugh the experience may be afterwardsinterpreted as the worship of the Christian God, in itselfi t is w ithou t form and void. Of thi s divine reverie Rousseaugives us m any glim pse s; here is one of th e less em otionaland more attractive, his morning worship at Isle Saint-Pierre : " Imm ediately I rose from my bed, I never failed,provided the wea ther was auspicious, to run to th e terraceto bre ath e the fresh an d wholesome air of the mo rning. . . .I know no homage m ore worthy of the divinity tha n thesilent admiration excited by the contemplation of his works.. . . It is especially at rising, wearied by a wan t of sleep,

that continual habit inclines me to this elevation, which doesnot im pose the fatigue of thinking. But to this effect myeyes mus t be struck with the ravishing views of na tur e. Inmy cham ber I pray less frequently, and not so ferven tly;but at the view of a beautiful landscape I feel myself moved,by w ha t power I am unable to tell. I have read somew hereof a wise bishop, who , in a visit to his diocese, found an oldwoman whose only prayer consisted in the single interjection' O h ! ' 'Good m other, ' said he to her, 'con tinue to prayin this manner. Your prayer is better than o u rs . ' ' Th is

be tter prayer is m ine also ." In experiences such as theseGod is but the name which he gives to the stimulus forthese tran sports of being. Th e beauty and wonder of theworld mean God.

Beyond the assertions that God is the prime mover of theworld, the basis of its goodness, and the source of its beauty,Rousseau professes himself unable to go. H e cann ot sayth at his na tur e is like m an 's, tha t he is the sole principle ofreality, or tha t he has created the w orld. H is functions canperhaps best be epitomised as being those of the principle

of order in the un iver se. Ro usseau 's religious emotions areno t thos e of love, bu t of adm iration . H e seeks no favours,

' Confessions, XII .


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BOU98EA.U'S DOCTBINB OF THE BIGHT TO B E L I E V E . 15

he asks no love in return, he is contented to know and feelthe perfect harmony of the world.

But while on its naturalistic side the religion of Rousseausometimes suggests the " amor intellectu als dei " of Spinoza,on its moral side, it shows marked contra sts. Th e secondpoint in his doctrine is the immortality of the soul and thecertainty of rewards and punishm ents after death. Here wehave the position later to be formulated more completely byKan t. Th e justice of God is invoked for this tenet. Hav ingmade man sensitive and having laid on him the duty of vir-tue, God cannot in justice leave his legitimate demands un-satisfied. Rousseau, like K an t, had no intention of saying

that happiness is the reward and sanction of virtue, but onlythat it is its reasonable comp letion. His attitud e is tha t ofthe Psalmist grieved at seeing the wicked flourishing like thegreen bay tree. " H ad I no other proof of the immaterialnature of the soul, the trium ph of the wicked and the oppres-sion of the righteous in this world would be enough to con-vince me. I should seek to resolve so appalling a discord inthe universal harmony. . . . I do not say that the good willbe rewarded, for what greater good can a truly good beingexpect than to exist in accordance with his nature ? But

I do assert that the good will be happy, because theirmaker, the author of all justice, who has made them capableof feeling, has not made them that they may suffer. . . .This feeling relies not so much on man's deserts as on theidea of good which seems to me inseparab le from the divineessence. I only assume that the laws of order are constantand that God is true to Himself." •

Th is soul of m an is also only to be thought as free. " l a monly aware of will through the consciousness of my own will,and intelligence is no bette r known to me. W he n you ask me

what is the cause which determines my will, it is my turn toask wh at cause determines my jud gm en t; for it is plain thatthese two causes are but one; and if you understand clearlythat man is active in his judgments, and that his intelligenceis only the power to compare and judge, you will see tha this freedom is only a similar power, or one derived fromthis. He chooses between good and evil, as he judges be-tween truth and falsehood; if his judgment is at fault, hechooses am iss. W ha t then is the cause that determines hiswill ? It is his judgm ent. And what is the cause that de-

termines his judgment ? It is his intelligence, his power ofjudging : the determ ining cause is in himself. Beyond that,I understand nothing."

2This freedom is thus a spiritual

lEmiU, IV. *Ibid.

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1 6 NORMAN WILDE :

spon taneity which d istinguishes ma n from the anim ate, a&well as ina nim ate, world. I t does not involve indifferencetoward the good, but the absence of ex ternal cons traint inth e choice or rejection of it. I t m ean s th at his choice is hisown and not the effect of an extern al cause. T ha t the rootof the act lies in the jud gm ent rath er than in a no n-intel-lec tua l factor, does no t for him affect th e moral significanceof the choice, for m an is responsible for the righ t use of hi&judgm ent. To his wrong choices is due all the evil of t heworld. " Ev il in general can only spring from disorder, andin the order of the world I find a never-failing system . Ev ilin p articu lar cases exists only in the m ind s of those who ex-

perience it, and this feeling is not the gift of nature, but thework of man himself. Pain has little power over those who,hav ing thoug ht little, look ne ither before nor after. Tak eaway our fatal progress, take away our faults and our vices,take away man's handiwork, and all is well."

1The intel-

lectualism of this is perhaps only in apparen t conflict w ith h isearlier famous saying, " l'hom me qui medite est u n anim aldeprave ".2

This spontaneity of the mind he illustrates further in histheo ry of knowledge. Th e fundam ental fact is the experi-

ence of the self in its sen satio ns. Th e sensation s are ofobjects which are to be conceived as external to the self andcausally related to its sensations, which arise independentlyof the will. W heth er these external objects are them selvesideas or not, is not im p or ta n t; they are at least anoth erthan the self. " Thro ugh sensation objects presen t the m-selves to me separately and singly as they are in nature; bycomparing them I rearrange them, I shift them so tospeak, I place one upon another to decide whether they arealike or different, or more generally to find out their rela-tions. To my mind , th e distinctive faculty of an active or

intelligent being is the power of understanding this word' i s '. I seek in vain in the merely sensitive entity tha tintelligent force which compares and judges; I can find notrace of it in its nature. . . . This power of my mind whichbring s my sensations togeth er and compares them may becalled by any name; let it be called attention, meditation,reflection, or w hat you w ill; it is still tru e th at it is in meand not in things, th at it is I alone who produce it, thoug hI only produce it when I receive an impression from things.Though I am compelled to feel or not to feel, I am free toexamine more or less what I feel."

3Here Rousseau breaks

1Emilt, IV. ' Discours sur Vin/galite. * Emile, IV .









































ROUSSEAU'S DOCTRINE OP TH E RIGH T TO BE LIE VE . 17

6quarely w ith He lv6tius and ran ges himself w ith " the il-lustrious Clarke " and t he E nglish rationa lists.

So, too, in his theory of conduc t, the spo ntan eity of th eindividual is his principle. Th ere is in m an, taken by him -self, a native tendency to self-expression and self-preservation,amour de soi. This tendency, since man is by nature goodand reasonable, is identical with the love of order and justice,and is th e root of all the virtues. H ad ma n but remaine din the state of nature in which he was created, his goodness,would have been but the natural unfolding of a flower in apeaceful garden. H av ing made the fatal step of organ ising'a social life, however, this same self-love became the root

of all the evils. M an learned to compare himself w ith hisfellows, and, with his consciousness of inequality, earnerprid e, envy, and ill-will. Ins tea d of amour de soi was amourpropre. Yet still in our corrupt condition there remains tous the original voice of reason bidding us express our truena ture and realise justice in the world. M orality is thusneither a seeking of pleasure nor obedience to law , bu t th eself-expression of a nature fundamentally good.

Rousseau's optimism thus penetrates his whole creed:a benevolent God, who has created a marvellously beautiful

world, in which H e has placed noble and generous men, who,through the exercise of their wholly desirable freedom, havebrought upon themselves evils, which, however, are boundto be redressed in a life beyond the grave, to the reality ofwhich the justice of God is pledged.

If we ask where Rousseau found this optimistic world view,th e answer is no t far to seek. In its outlines it was identica lwith that rationalised Christianity then known as Deism andnow prevalent as liberal Prote stantism . It w as ChristianTheism m inus the doctrines of the fall and redem ption.

" Born in a family w here morality and piety reigned,educated with kindness by a minister full of wisdom andreligion, I received from my tend erest childhood principlesand maxims, others would say prejudices, which have neverentirely left me." 1 Under the influence of Mme. de Warensand nature, he became "devot presque a la maniere deFenelon ". Instinctively averse to authoritative dogma, hisreading of philosophy and his first intercourse with thesensationalists and naturalists at Paris developed his natur-alistic tendency and helped pare down his inherited Ch rist-

ianity. Repelled by the anti-religious extrem es of con sisten tsensationalism he seems to have fallen back upon the

'Mveries, III.

2


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1 8 NORMAN W ILD E:

English rationalists and sentimentalists, especially Clarke

and Shaftesbury, to the former of whom he refers as " theillustrious Clarke who gives light to the world and proclaimsthe Being of beings and Giver of t hin gs ," • whose system,so simple ye t so great, seems to him freer from c ontradic-tions and difficulties than any he has found. T he influenceof the sentimental optimism of Shaftesbury, known to himthrough Diderot's translation of the Inquiry, is evidentthroughout his moral theories as well as in his theology.*For the positive contents of his creed, therefore, Rousseauseems to have been indebted to these English believers in arationalised Christianity. Eve n for the enthusiasm with

which he held it, faint parallels may be found in th e Pla t-onising theologians and in Shaftesbu ry. But the life andspirit of it were his own, and it was these tha t made it theliving force it was for his generation.

Tu rni ng now from this inherited co ntent of his faith tothat part of his teaching which is more peculiarly his own,we come to the problem of logical method and the basis ofbelief. And pe rhaps first it is well to note tha t Ro usseaubelieves th at he had a me thod. H e tells us in his Rtveries

3

th at he had reached th e age of forty before he had atta ined

any rational principles of living. Up to tha t time he haddrifted at the mercy of chance influences, distracted fromhis duties " without scorning them but often without rightlyknow ing them ". In his youth he had fixed upon tha t ageas the limit of his drifting, and now tha t it had arrived, hewithdre w from the world, changed his hab its, his costum e,and his friends, and thought out for himself a system ofprinciples that might serve him for the rest of his life.The se, once adopted after th e most ea rne st investigation,he believed th at he oug ht not ag ain to subject to criticismsince he could not hope ever again to be in a better position

to test their tru th . Co nstant revision would m ean growinguncertainty and practical instability, a condition incompat-ible with the best conduct of life. W he th er it was his yearsat the Hermitage and at Montrnorency, issuing in thepublication of his three main works, the Gontrat Social,the Notwelle Hilcyise, and the Emile, to which he refers, orthe period following the first Discoiirs is not quite clear. Atany rate, he gives us to understand that, following the

1EmiU, IV .

' F o r Rousseau 's deb t to English though t, e/. Ch. Borgeaud, J. J.

Routseau's Religions-philosophie, i., 2. Cue ndet, La phil. relitjieuse deJ. J. Rousseau, I., iii., 111.Rlveries, I I I .




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exam ple of D escartes, his opinions were the result of system-atic doubt and the adoption of a conscious method . To

th is account it is no t possible to give full cred ence. Asusual, Bousseau has read back into his motives the reasons•which justified th e results . B u t thou gh we have to explainhis retirement and philosophic activity by motives morehu m an tha n youthful resolve, it is true th at in his fifth de-cade he was forced, in self-defence, to examine the groundsof his instinctive beliefs and to justify them before his world.That his doubt at this time extended beyond the proofsof his beliefs to the beliefs themselves is far from likely.Bousseau's temper was too strongly emotional and too little

intellectual to subject him to any agonies of doubt. " Theyhad not persuaded me," he writes of his former friends," but they had disquieted me. Th eir argu m ents had shakenme, withou t ever convincing me. I could find no good replybu t I felt the re mu st be one. I accused myself of unsk il-fulness rather than of error, and my heart replied better thanmy reason."

1His task during these critical years, therefore,

consisted in making clear to himself th e groun ds of his faith,in finding, as Mr. Bradley would say, bad reasons for whathe believed upon instinct.

And in the first place it is significant th at B ousseau doesoffer reaso ns for his beliefs. H e ha s no in ten tion of divid-ing hu m an natu re sharply against itself, and relying uponinst inc t to the exclusion of reason . H is inclination seem srather to go with reason as far as it will carry him and thenin its extrem ity take refuge in feeling. As in orthodoxscholastic circles, reason is a good propad eutic to faith. Andso in the Profession of Faith in the Emile, we find theusual rationa listic proofs for the existence of God, basedupon the natu ral iner tia of matter and the necessity for aPrime Mover, whose intelligence and benevolence are im-

plied in the order and goodness of the world. It m igh t bethe voice of Newton or Clarke we hear in these physicalconsiderations, adduced for the support of this theologicalten et. So, too, in the discussion of the na tur e and im-m ortality of the soul, while it is the moral argu m ent uponwh ich he ultimately relies, he is at pains to mak e clear themetaphysical point as to the natural distinctness of soul andbody and the consequen t possibility of their separa tion. Noris the re any suggestion that these reason ings are no t validor even th at their validity rests upon their utility. H e seems

A B dogmatic as the rationalistic theologians.But in the next breath his voice may be raised against

1Reveries, III.









































2 0 NORMAN WIIiDB :

reason and its friends, especially against its friends. No termis too harsh for him to use about the members of the

materialistic group of whom he was once the associate. Anydoctrine advocated by them w as for Rousseau suspect. T hefrivolity and insincerity of their lives vitiated for him theirteachings . " Th eir passions which governed their doctrines,their interest in making this or that believed, rendered itimpossible to discover wh at they them selves believed. Canone look for good faith among party leaders ? " l Consciousof the pa rt played by the passions in his own life, he isinclined to demand moral integrity as the condition ofintellectual leadership, if no t of th e atta inm en t of tr u th

itself.W he ther this dis trus t of the pronounced votaries of reasonin his own circle had a ny thin g to do with it or not, we findhim advocating a conception of belief in which reason playsa m inor rdle. Un doub tedly the main explanation of hisposition is to be found in the felt inadequacy of reason toprove th at which he believed. H e could no t but realise tha tthat perfect world which was the object of his enthusiasm,and that moral order which was the standard of his life,were not capable of demonstration by any logical processesknow n to man. Th e severe and barren theodicy of the

rationalistic deist might rest on such a logical basis, butno t the emotionally satisfying system of Rou sseau. H enceafter having discussed the attributes of God he concludes:" If I have succeeded in discerning these attributes of whichI have no absolute idea, it is in the form of unavoidable de-ductions, and by th e right use of my reason ; but L affirm themwithout understanding them , and at bottom th at is noaffirmation at all. In vain do I say, God is th us , I feel it, Iexperience it, none the more do I understand how God canbe thu s. In a word, the more I try to envisage Hi s infinite

essence, the less do I com prehend i t ; bu t it is, and th at isenough for m e; the less I und erstand the more I adore. Iabase m yself saying, ' B eing of beings, I am because Th oua r t : to fix my tho ug hts on Thee is to ascend to the sourceof my being. T he best use I can make of my reason is toresign it before Thee; my mind delights, my weakness re-joices, to feel myself overwhelmed by Thy greatness.' " * Andin his letter to Voltaire he w rite s: " I admit frankly tha tneither the affirmative nor the negative seem to me demon-strate d by the light of reason alon e, and t hat if t he the istonly founds his faith on probab ilities, th e athe ist still less

1Riverits, I I I . « Emile, IV .









































BOUSSEAU'S DOCTRINE OF THE RIGHT TO BELIEVE . 2 1

exact founds his on the contrary probabilities."l

And againhe complains that men are "ignorant of just that whichit is the m ost important for them to know, m an. W e seeneither the soul of another, because it is concealed, nor ourow n, for we have no mirror of the mind. Bo rn blind, wehave no conception of sight and, unconscious th at any facultyis lacking, wish to measure the limits of the world, thoughour short telescopes, like our hands, reach but two feet be-fore u s ! " * " Th e jargon of m etaphysics has never led to thediscovery of a single truth, and it has filled philosophy withabsurdities of which we are ashamed as soon as we stripthem of their long words."

3And in a letter to Moulton

he explains tha t he has used this " ja rg o n " because thematerialists, whom he wishes to refute in the Profession ofFaith, understood no other.

4His conclusion of the matter

i s : " Sans le sen time nt intern e, il ne re sterait bientot plustraces de verite sur la terre ".

5

But when we come to consider what Kousseau offers assubstitute or supplement for reason, exact statements fail us.T ha t there is an organ of religious and mo ral tru th oth erthan reason he asserts freely, but what it is and what ar~ itsrelations to reason, he now here clearly says. T he na m es for

it are various, sentiment, sentiment interne or intdrieure, con-science, lumiere naturelle, instinct moral. By these terms hemeans to indicate a kind of immediate and infallible sourceof truth native to man and free from the possibility of errorinheren t in the reasoning processes. By this means ma ncomes in contact with super-sensible reality and is furnishedwith the spiritual facts upon which his moral and religiouslife is built. A lthough the se facts may not be explicable orreducible to system or even consonant with ordinary scientificviews, they have a certainty and necessity which makes the m

th e fixed poin ts in any com plete philosophy of life. A gains tthese rocks the waves of rational scepticism and dogmatismbeat in vain.

As applied to moral truth, the term conscience is the usualone, and we have the orthodox doctrine of its infallibility.H e defines it as " an inna te principle of justice and virtue "." T oo often does reason deceive us ; we have only too gooda right to doubt he r; but conscience never deceives us. Sheis the true guide of man ; she is to the soul what instinct isto the body ; he who obeys his conscience is following nature

1 Lettre a Voltaire, 18fch August, 1756.* Lettre* sur 2a vertu et le bonheur. *Emile, IV .* Lettre d, Moulton, 1st August, 1763.8Cf. Cuendet, op. cit., ii., 1. Le scepticisme de Rousseau.


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and need not fear tha t he will go astra y."1

And yet although

he claims infallibility for it, he insis ts th at " the decreesof conscience are not judg m ents bu t feelings. Although allour ideas come from without, the feelings by which they areweighed are within us, and it is by these feelings alone thatwe perceive the fitness or unfitness of thin gs in relation toourselves, which leads us to seek or shun these things."

2

" To know good is not to love it ; this know ledge is notin na te in m an ; but as soon as his reason leads him to perceiveit, his conscience impels him to love it. I t is this feelingwh ich is inna te." ' I n a note h e tries to minimise th isdistinction between idea and feeling by pointing out that it

is a m at ter of emphasis, " when we are chiefly concernedwith the object and only think of ourselves as it were byreflection, that is an idea. W he n, on the othe r handthe impression received excites our chief attention, and weonly think secondarily of the ob jec tca us in git .it is a feeling."Conscience is thu s the in stinctiv e em otional reac tion tosituations the n ature and m eaning of which are learned fromexperience. It is not the imp erative of K an t or even theintuition of the neo-Stoics, but the moral sense of Shafts-bury.

But this organ of truth is not merely moral in its function,it is th e source of an u ltimate world view. By it we knowth at God is, and that there is a future life of rewards andpu nish m en ts. H ere the theory me ets with m ore difficulty.It is not so hard to conceive that there is an instinctivereaction by which we respond to the value for us of .varioussitua tions, our satisfactions and dissatisfactions indicatingthe real worth of conduct, for the world of values seemsna tura lly related to our feelings, but w hen these same feelingsare made the basis for belief in an objective order, the matterbecomes not so clear. Apparently, a s in the case of theconscience, strictly so called, he does not mean to assert thepow er of the feelings to give us new ideas for he recognisesclearly enough th at h is religious ideas have had a historyand are due psychologically to the associations of his child-hood and youth.

4This sentiment, therefore, must be also a

subjective evaluation or test of the truth of ideas elsewherederived. I t is our emotional touc hstone by which we dis-tingu ish the true gold from the false. Hesit atin g betweentheism and atheism, finding no compelling objective reasonfor decision, the strong emotional value of the former forces

it upon our acceptance with an intensity and intimacy whichare a substitute for reason s. I t ough t to be true therefore

iEmile, IV . • Ibid. 'Ibid. * Reveries, III.


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it m ust be true. I t fits in with the ideas we cherish, andgives organic un ity to life. L ost in rap ture at t he vision of

the divine there can be no question of doubt for Rousseau:" Quand je veux m'elever alui je ne sais ou je suis ; n'aperce-vant aucun rap po rt en tre lui et moi, je ne sais pas ou1'atteindre, je ne vois ni ne sens plus rien, je me trouve dansune espece d'aneantissem ent."

1It is no t a case of his accept-

ing an idea but of being possessed by it.Granted, then, that the feelings are not a revelatory,

but a ratifying, faculty, there comes the question of validity.And here there meets us the problem of the pragmatism ofEou sseau. In spite of the fact th at the ambigu ity of the term

makes the use of it relatively safe, it also makes it undesir-able to apply it with out care. Eec ently Prof. Schinz

2has

included Kousseau among the objects of his anti-pragmatismcrusade and ha s been followed in his classification byCuendet and Hibben.

3Th at the re is some ground for this

classification is beyond doub t. Eo usse au by tem per and incli-nation is true to the type. The theory w ould have found hima willing convert, offering him salvation from the mechanicallogic of his tim e. B ut to recognise tha t this mo dern theoryof truth would have answered his needs and clarified his

thou ght, is not to attrib ute it to him. Th e distinctions inthe h istory of th oug ht are as real as the continu ity and adoctrine of preformation is no more useful in history thanin biology. W hile Eo ussea u, therefore, exh ibits points ofagreement with James and Schiller, his points of differenceare equally vital.

In the first place he agrees with them in his emph asisupon useful knowledge. Em ile is to be guarded from use-less science : " The question is not to know what is, but onlyw ha t is useful ".* " I am conten t if he know s the ' where -

fore ' of his actions and the ' why ' of his beliefs. For oncemore my object is not to supply him with exact knowledge,but w ith th e m eans of getting it when required, to teach himto value it at its true worth, and to love truth above allth ings ."

6These passages Prof. Schinz cites as evidence

that truth for Eousseau means " practical truth " in opposi-tion to science. It is evident enough tha t he is draw ingsuch a contrast here, but the slightest acquaintance with theremainder of the book should suffice to show that far fromidentifying truth in general with useful truth, such utilities

are for him but fragments of th e grea t body of knowledge.-

1 Nouvelle H&om, v., 5. • The Monist, 1909.'Cuendet, op. cit., i., 11. Hibb en, Phil, of the Enlightenment, p. 167.*Emile, III. 'Ibid.


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2 4 NOBMAN W ILDE :

from which must be carefully selected the parts suitable for

yo uth . As the former quotation implies, there is a knowledgeof what is, apart from what is useful, though it is not for thechild and rarely for the m an . Th e doc trine is educationalno t logical. W ere we to take such p racticality as evidenceof pragm atic logic we m ust accuse most of th e moralists ofthe age of Queen Anne.

1That he agrees with Pope as to

the proper study of mankind implies that there are otherstudies which the unw ise may improperly pursu e, improperly,not because they do not lead to knowledge but because theydo no t lead to virtue. So too, his com ment on himself that" I have never seen him listen calmly to any theory tha t he

believed harmful to the public weal," 2 refers to no theory oftruth but indicates the primacy of his moral interest or thehas tiness of his m oral prejudice. To the sam e effect is hissta tem en t: " I know only that the truth is in the things andnot in my mind which judges them, and that the less I pu tof my own in my judgments about them, the surer I am tocome near the tr u th : thus my rule, to listen to sentimen tmore than to reason, is supported by reason itself".

1

W hate ver we may think about the consistency of this tes-timony of reason against itself, it is clear that Rousseau

has in m ind no doctrine of subjectivity here but is appeal-ing to an intuitive sentiment which, as giving immediatecon tact with an objective order, is more reliable than thosemediate processes which are liable to be vitiated by the dis-turbin g effects of conscious purpose. The mind does notcreate or form truth, it finds it, and its organ is this feelingor intuitive reason.

4

In the second place, his doctrine shows pragm atic colouringin the place given to the feelings as grounds of belief. Notmerely do they de termine our judgm ents, but they have a

right to do so. Passag es could be multipled in illustrationof this contention : perhaps the following are typical. " Yousay that my reason chooses the sentiment that my heart pre-fers, and I do not deny it. Th at is wh at h appens in everydeliberation where the judgment has not enough light todecide without the help of the will."

sWith reference to the

imm ortality of the soul he write s: " As this assump tion is con-soling and in itself not unreasonable, why should I fear to

1Cf. J. Texte, J. J. Rousseau and the Cosmo politan Spirit in Litera-

ture.*

Dialogues, II. »Emilt, IV.4 Cf. Parodi, La phil. religieuse de J. J. Rousseau , Revue de M& aphy-sique ct de Morale, 1912.

* Dialogues, IL


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R O U SSEA U ' S D O C TBIN E O F TH E R IG H T TO BEL IEV E . 2 5

accept i t ? " "A ll the subtleties of metaphysics would notmake me doubt the immortality of the soul and the reality ofa benevolent Prov idence. I feel it, I believe it, I wish it, Ihope it, and I will defend it to my last breath." l And in hisreply to the Archbishop of Paris he suggests that some day,when wearied of fruitless discussions about creeds, men willcome together in an assembly from which theologians wouldbe excluded, and will agree upon th e creed m ost useful toman for " We may by this means hope to approach as nearto the t ruth as possible to m en ; for we may assume thatwh at is most useful to the creatu re of his hand is most agree-able to the Creator".

2" T h e inner proof or tha t of senti-

ment is the only one which can render all the others invinc-ible."

3And the V icar's final appeal to Em ile begin s: " My

son, keep your soul in such a state that you will always desirethat there should be a God and you will never doubt it."'

Confining our attention to passages such as these, andignoring those in which the belief is one which concernsvalues, for here Rousseau recognises that " La verity moralen'est pas ce qui est, mais ce qui est bien," we find that whilehis doctrine is almost identical with that of the will tobelieve, it is not pragm atic. W h at he is contending for is

just that which James explained was his own real object,the right to believe in cases where objective and conclusiveevidence is lacking. So far is he from igno ring the ex istenceand value of such objective g rounds th a t h is own positionwas assumed only after critical, or would-be critical, ex-am ination of such evidence. H e ad m its: " I do not doub t,it is true, that the prejudices of childhood and the secretlongings of my heart have weighed down the balance on theside most comforting for me.. It is hard to keep frombelieving w hat one desires w ith so muc h ardour, and who

-can doubt tha t the interest for or against the judgm ents asto the future life decides the faith of most men as to theirhopes and fears ? All that might fascinate my judgment, Iam su re, but no t affect m y good faith, for I feared deceivingmyself on every po int." The issue being th e grave one ofrisking eternal life for the pleasures of the world, it wasnecessary to reach some conviction. Un able to solve allth e m ysteries involved, " I adopted in each question thebelief which seemed to me the best established immediately,the most credible in itself, without stopping for objections

wh ich I could not resolve, bu t w hich were confuted by•other objections not less strong in the opposed system". *

1Lettre a Vo'taire. * Lettre A Ch. Btaumont.

*NouvelUHeloM,V.,v. *Emilt,lV. > Rtveries, III.


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2 6 NORMAN WILDE :

Whether this account of his own procedure is biographicallycorrect or not, the re is no doubt th at it gives the key to the

interpretation of his various statem ents of doctrine. Ho w-ever slight his interest was in pure science he never me antto subs titu te for it faith. So far as an objective procedurecould go he was willing to go w ith it. B ut when the pa thof reason lost itself in a confusion of issueless alte rna tiveshe claimed the right of committing himself to this "instinctof th e soul ". H e took n o pains to m ark out t he limits ofreason as did Kant, nor did he, as James, define the condi-tions under which it was reasonable to exercise the right tobelieve, but his thou gh t is sim ilar; there is a field for reasonbut it is limited, and there are conditions under which wemust believe without proof. Those conditions, as impliedin the passage just quoted, are a vital issue, a living op tion,and the silence or con tradiction s of reason. In such asituation it is the par t of wisdom to fall back upon thatwhich commends itself imm ediately to our natu ral feeling.I t is a case of rationalist rogues falling ou t and honest mengetting their due. In Rou sseau's conception this honestcommon-sense nature which comes to its own expressesitself in the form of an emotionally welcomed intu ition ,rath er than in the will, as in the doctrine of Jam es. H is

em phas is is upon the feeling of th e t ru th or the seeing ofthe fact, rather than upon the legitimacy of the conductbased upon an assum ption. The rig ht to cherish a lovelyvision, ra the r than to lead a strenu ous life, is tha t for whichhe contends, to be a hearer, rather than a doer, of the word.

The passage in the letter to the Archbishop of Paris seemsto suggest, perhaps, more of a pragmatic tendency than hasbeen admitted, but when we consider its context it losesits significance. F a r from discussing the na ture of trut h,Rousseau is here concerned with the question of externalunity in public worship, with la religion civile, as he callsit in the Contral Social. A pronounced individualist inpersonal religion, he recognises the necessity for, and at thesam e time the difficulty in attain ing , some unity in thereligious life of a people. Th e s tate cann ot tolerate everyvariety of belief. Unable to reach a comm on body of doctrineupon l-ational grounds, the only resource is to agree upon asystem useful to the state, in the belief that the promotionof the welfare of m an is the object of the divine will. Theproblem is a purely practical on e, essentially a political ra th erthan a philosophical m atte r. T ha t Rousseau believes tha t

th e useful doctrine is true , is quite probable, but he has nointention here of making its utility the essence of its truth.


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ROUSSEAU'S DOCTRINE OF TH E RIGHT TO BE LIE V E. 27

On the contrary, the implication is rather that there is an

objective order of truth to which we can at best but ap-prox im ate. As good citizens it is the part of contentio ussectaries to lay aside their private dogmas and realise thetrue end of civic religion, the welfare of the state.

Nor in his advice to Em ile, does Eou sseau m ean to foundbelief in God upon desire. To desire the existence of Godmeans for him to be in a state of mind free from pride andself seeking and accordingly more ready to recognise theobjective tru th revealed in feeling. " T he silence of th epassions " is for him an indispensable condition for th e re-ception of tru th, and it is thi s th at is implied in the desirefor the existence of God . The real ground for that beliefwould be not in the desire but in the inner voice whichmakes itself heard in this silence, in the conviction felt whennature has had a chance to speak.

If now , we ask w ha t ground there is for believing th atthese intuitive convictions are true, we are throw n backagain upon Rousseau's fundamental optimism. H um annature, as the product of a good God, is essentially andprimitively good. Our original instincts and cognitive da taare given by God and are adapted by him to o ur practical

and cognitive needs. If we can only free ourselves from th edisturbing influences of civilisation, strip ourselves of theaccretions of error due to our wilful mistakes, and regainsomething of the simplicity of vision with which we wereoriginally endowed, we may hope to attain tr uth . It is thisoptimistic prejudice which lies at the root of the popularStoic and even Ch ristian doctrine, tha t gives to imm ediatefeeling its weight with Kousseau. T he ideas thus accreditedare not man-m ade , bu t are part of the universal hered ityfrom God.

The apparent circle involved in making belief in Goddepend upon feeling and feeling depend for:its validity upon

belief in God, me ans th at Eo usseau h as reached his ultim atehere. His optimism, or his belief in God, is his primarypostulate, rooted in his em otional temper. I t has no logicalground but only psychological fixity. Accepting it as hemu st, its existence and validity then seem natu ral upon th ebasis of its content. L ik e Descartes, he feels that w hatev erhas the same kind of certainty, as this idea of God, must betrue, for God would n ot deceive him, o nly with Rousseauthe certain ty is one of feeling and not of insight. T hi soptimistic postulate he does not make explicit in his logic,bu t it lies at the root of h is th ink ing not only in religion ,bu t in politics, social theory, and education. Thin kin g is


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2 8 NOBMAN W ILD E: THE EIGHT TO BELIE VE.

on e of th e artificialities of life, one of th e luxuries of a cor-rupt civilization, and as such its results are less trustworthy

than the simple intuitions of a state of nature.If, th en , we unde rstand by pragm atism a general theory

of knowledge w hich denies th e objectivity of tru th , and placesits essence in its utility, we must refuse to identify with itth is theory of E ousseau . At the same time we m ust recog-nise his likeness in personal tem per to prag m atists of th etype of James, a likeness which shows itself in his impatienceof useless knowledge and his interest in defending a spherefor th e exercise of faith. B ut his real place is w ith theintu itio nis ts of th e Plato nising school, with the m en of

enthusiasm and of vision, believers in an Absolute to be feltand seen, rathe r than to be thou ght. In this respect he isthe forerunner of Jacobi and the faith philosophers with theiropposition of Vernunft and Verstand and their rejection ofdem onstratio n. To Pascal, too, we can recognise his debtin spite of the con trast in spirit. Th ere is th e sam e dis trustof reason in matters of faith, the same sense of the necessityof practica l choice in the absence of know ledge, th e samereliance on the reasons of the heart—but here the likenessends. Pasc al is a Ch ristian, Eousse au, in spite of his pro-fession, is not. F or th e former, the only escape from th e

ignorance and misery of life is by the salto mortale of faithin th e sup ernatu ral revelation of God. Ev en this faith itselfis a gift of God to a hum an na ture too radically evil to willits own salvation. Fo r th e latter, tru th is to be had by aretu rn to the natural innocence of the heart. F o r Eousseauth ere is no tragedy , no ag ony, no gre at gulf fixed b etwee nfallen man and his salvation, his destiny is in his own hands.In Pascal's classification it is with the Stoics that Eousseauwould belong. W ith K ant his relation is more largely oneof stim ulu s tha n of logical likeness. I t was to his preac hing

of anti-intellectualism in morals and religion that Kantrecognised himself as indebted.1 But, while they are at onein their belief that these aspects of life have a foundationother than that of science, they differ in their conceptionof w ha t it is. Instea d of the postu lates of the moral life,Bou sseau relies upon the primitive instincts of hum an n ature ,upon an intuition which, while not the intellectuelle An-schauung which K an t rejects, is, in its imm ediacy, liker tothe Vernunft of the faith philosophers than to the practicalreason of Kant. In this respect he is not so far along thepath to pragmatism as is his more illustrious successor.

1Hartonstein, ed., viii. 618,642; cf . V. Deltas, Bousseau et Kant,

Revue de metaphytique et de morale, 1«12, also his La phil. pratique dtKant, ch. ii.


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Wilde__rousseaus Doctrine of the Right to Believe