A Treatise on Man: His Intellectual Faculties and His Education V2 — II

Front matter

A

TREATISE ON MAN.

HIs INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES

Contents

FOLUME I,

SECTION V,

OF THE ERRORS AND CONTRADICTIONS OF THOSE, WHOSE PRIN- CIPLES DIFFERING FROM MINE. REFER THE USFQUAL DE- GREES OF UNDERSTANDINGS, TO THE UNE2AUAL DEGREES OF PERFECTION IN THE ORGANS OF THE SENSES ...e00-coove pase 1 None having written better on thie subject than M. Rousseau; I take

Chap. 1

LONTRADICTIONS OF THE AUTHOR OF EMILIUS CONCERNING THE INEQUALITY OF UNDER- STANDINGS.

r : : Tac mere assemblage of M. Rousseau’s ideas will prove their contrariety.

* In this question, regard is had only to that small difference in organization, which nature has made among men endowed with all their senses, i. PROPO-

TREATISE ON MAN.

Contradictions of Rousseau on the inequality of understanding.

}. PROPOSITION.

He says, Letter 3. p. 116. vol. v. of the Eloisa*:

“To change the characters we must change the “ temperaments; to desire in like manner to change “the understandings, and of a fool to make a man of ** talents, is to desire to makea fair man brown. How “can we form the hearts and understandings by one “commou model? Do not our talents, our virtues, “and vices, and consequently our characters, sired “ entirely on our organization.”

2, PROPOSITION.

He says, p. 164, 165, 166. vol. v. of the Eloisa,

“© When children are brought up in their original “simplicity, whence do they derive those vices of “which they have seen no example ; those passions “‘ they have had no occasion to feel : those prejudices “that nothing can have given them? The faults of “‘ which we accuse nature, are notits work, but ours. “¢ A viciousspeech in the mouth of achild, is a strange “‘ plant whose seed is borne by the wind.”

In the first of those quotations, M. Rousseau thinks that it is to our organization we owe our vices and passions, and beamatcaly our characters.

* T take most of my quotations from let. 3. vol. v. of the Eloisa. It is an extract from the Emilius made by the author himself. In this letter he has assembled almost all the principles of his great work, BQ In

4 TREATISE ON MAR.

Contradictions of Rousseau on the inequality of understanding.

In the second, on the contrary, he thinks (and I think with him) that we are born without vices, because we are born without ideas; but for the same reason we are also born without virtue. If vice be a stranger to human nature, virtue must bea stranger also. Both of them are not, and cannot be any other than acquisitions (1). For which reason, a child is supposed not capable of sinning till seven years old, as before that age it has no precise idea of justice or injustice, or any knowledge of its duty towards mankind.

3 PROPOSITION.

M. Rousseau says, p. 63. vol. iii. of Emilius, “That “ the sentiment of justice is innate in the heart of man.” He repeats, p. 107. of the same vol.“ That there is

‘at the bottom of our souls an innate principle of “ virtue and justice.”

4. PROPOSITION.

He says, p. 11. vol. iii. of Emilius, “ The interior “ voice of virtue cannot be heard by the poor (2), who “ only think how to subsist.” He adds, p. 161. vol. iv. ibid. “The common people have few ideas of “what is fair and honest,” and concludes, p- 112. vol. iii. “that before the age of reason, man does “ good and evil without knowing it.

We see, that if in the third of these propositions M. Rousseau believes the idea of yirtue to be innate, in

Contradictions of Rousseau Gn the inequality of understanding.

in the fourth he believes itto be an acquisition ; and he is there right. [It isa perfect legislation only that gives all mena perfect idea of virtue, and compels them to be honest.

All men would have beea just, if Heaven had engraved on their hearts, while in the cradle, the true principles of legislation ; but that it has not done.

It was the will of Heaven therefore that men should owe to reflection the excellence of their laws: that the knowledge of those laws should be an acquisition, and the produce of genius improved by time and experience. In fact, I would say to M. Rousseau, if there were an innate sentiment of justice and virtue, that sentiments, like those of corporeal pleasure and pain, would be common to all men, to the poor as well as the rich, to the common people as well as the great ; a man would at every time of life distinguish good from evil (3).

But M. Roussean says, p. 109. vol. iii. of Emilius, <¢ Without an innate principle of virtue, should we see “the just man and the honest citizen concur, to his “ own prejudice, in the public good?” Lanswer, no one has ever concurred in the public good to his own prejudice. The heroic citizen, who risks his life for a crown of glory, to merit the public esteem, and to free his country from servitude, yields to the sentiment that appears to him the mostagreeable. Why should he not find his happiness in the exercise of virtue, in the esteem of the public, and the pleasure attached to that esteem ? Why should he not expuse his life for

B 3 his

Contradictions of Rousseau on the inequality of understanding.

his country, when the sailor and the soldier, the one in astorm, and the other in the trenches, expose theirs every day for a shilling ? The generous spirited man, who seems to concur in the public good to his own prejudice, is therefore led to it by the sentiment of a noble interest. Why does M. Rousseau deny in this place that interest is the sole and universal motive of men’s actions, and allow it in a thousand other parts of his works? He says, p. 73. vol. iii. of Emilius, “A “‘ man may make what pretence he pleases of prefer- “ring my interest to his own, and colour the lie with ‘* what demonstration he will, yet I am still very sure “‘thatit is one.” And, p. 137. vol. i. ‘ When my “pupil engages with me, J would always have him “find a present and sensible interest to fulfil his en- “ gagement ; believe and that if he ever fail, the “ falsehood may draw on him evils which he will see “arise from the order of things.”

In this quotation, if M. Rousseau think himself the more secure of the promise of his pupil, as that pupil has more interest to keep it, why say, vol. i. p. 190. of Emilius, “ He who keeps his promise merely for his “« profit and interest, is scarcely more bound than if he “had never promised.” Such a man will certainly not be bound by his promise, but by his interest. Now this obligation is full as good as another, and M. Rousseau does not doubtof it when he would have interest bind his pupil to his promise. Men are, and ever will be so inuch the more faithful observers of their promise

as

TREATISE ON MAN, f:

Pr nnd Definition of the understanding.

a as they have more interest to keep it. Whoever fails in this case is more fool than knave.

I own that it is rare to find such palpable contradic. tions in the principles of the same work, The only way of accounting for this moral phenomenon is, to allow that M. Rousseau, in his Emilius, has less regard to the truth of what he says, than to the mantier in which he says it. The result of these contradictions is, that the ideas of justice and virtue are real acquisitions.