From “Émile.” Translated by N. Nugent.

EVERYTHING is perfect, coming from the hands of the Creator; everything degenerates in the hands of man. He forces a spot of ground to nourish the productions of a foreign soil; or a tree to bear fruit by the insition of another; he mixes and confounds climates, elements, seasons; he mutilates his dog, his horse, his slave; he inverts the nature of things, only to disfigure them; he is fond of deformity and monstrous productions; he is pleased with nothing, as it is framed by nature, not even with man; we must break him to his mind, like a managed horse; we must fashion him to his taste, like the trees or plants of his garden.

  Were it not for this culture, things would still be worse; for our species will not bear being fashioned by halves. In the present constitution of things, man abandoned from his birth to his own guidance among the rest of society, would be a monstrous animal. Prejudices, authority, necessity, example, and all the social institutions with which we are surrounded, would stifle the voice of nature, and substitute nothing else in its place. Nature would be to him like a plant or shrub, that shoots up spontaneously in the highway, but is soon trodden down and destroyed by travelers.

  To thee do I therefore address my discourse, O fond and careful mother, whose sense has led thee out of the common tract, and taught thee to preserve the tender plant from the injurious blast of human opinions! Be sure to water the young sprig before it dies; it will one day yield such fruit as must afford thee infinite delight. Take care to erect an early enclosure around the infant’s mind; others may mark out the circumference, but to thee alone it belongs to fix the barrier.

  Plants are fashioned by culture, and men by education. Were man to be born of full size and strength, these would avail him nought, till he learnt to make use of them; nay, they would rather resound to his prejudice, by preventing others from lending him assistance; so that, being left to himself, he would die miserably before he knew his wants. We are apt to complain of the state of infancy; not reflecting, that if man had not commenced an infant, the human species must have perished.

  We are all brought into the world feeble and weak, yet we stand in need of strength; we are destitute of everything, yet we want assistance; we are senseless and stupid, yet we have occasion for judgment. All that we have not at our birth, and that we stand in need of at the years of maturity, is the gift of education.

  Education is either from nature, from men, or from things. The developing of our faculties and organs, is the education of nature; that of men, is the application we learn to make of this very developing; and that of things is the experience we acquire in regard to the different objects by which we are affected.

  Mankind are all formed by three sorts of masters. The pupil, in whom their instructions contradict each other, is ill-educated, and will never be self-consistent. He, in whom they all coincide on the same point, and tend to the same end, he alone may be said to hit his aim, and to live consistently. In short, he alone is well educated.

  Now, of those three different educations, that of nature is independent in us; that of things depends on us only in particular respects, and this in a hypothetical sense; for who can pretend to direct every word and action of those who have the care of an infant?

  No sooner, therefore, does education become an art, than it is almost impossible it should succeed; since the concurrence of circumstances necessary for its success is in no man’s power. All that we can possibly do, by dint of care, is to come near the mark, more or less; but he must be very fortunate indeed who hits it.

  But what mark is this? you will say; the very same that nature has in view. This we have just now proved; for since the concurrence of the three educations is necessary for their completion, the other two must be directed towards that which is no way subject to our control. But, perhaps, the word nature may bear, on this occasion, to indeterminate a sense; we shall, therefore, endeavor to fix it.

  Nature, you will say, is nothing more than a habit. But what do you mean by that? Are not habits contracted by mere force, which cannot be said, however, to stifle nature? Such, for instance, is the habit of plants, constrained in their vertical direction. Restored to their liberty, they still retain the direction they have been forced to assume; yet the sap has not changed its original impression; and if the plant continues to vegetate, its prolongation once more becomes vertical. It is the same in regard to human inclinations. So long as we continue in the same state, we may retain such inclinations as result from habit, and are least natural to us; but as soon as the situation changes, the habit ceases, and nature revives. Education surely is nothing more than habit. And yet are there not some people who altogether forget, and others who retain, their education? Whence this difference? If we are to confine the word nature to habits conformable to nature, surely we may spare ourselves the trouble of this nonsensical expression.

  We are all born with a certain degree of sensibility, and from the very first instant of our existence we are differently affected by the objects that surround us. As soon as we acquire, if I may so speak, a consciousness of our sensations, we are disposed either to pursue or to flee from the objects that produce them; at first, as they are agreeable or displeasing to us; in the next place, in proportion to the agreement or disagreement we find between ourselves and the objects; and lastly, pursuant to the judgment we form of them, from the idea of happiness or perfection acquired by reason. These dispositions are enlarged and strengthened, in proportion as we become more sensible and intelligent; but restrained by habit, they are altered more or less by opinion. Before this alteration, they are what I distinguish in man by the name of nature.

  To these primitive dispositions every thing must, therefore, be referred; and this might easily be done, were the three sorts of education no more than different; but what are we to do, when they happen to be opposite? When, instead of educating a man for himself, you want to educate him for others, the harmony or agreement is then impossible. Being obliged either to combat nature or social institutions, you must make your option, whether you are to form the man or the citizen; for you cannot do both.

  Every partial society, when it is close and compact, deviates greatly from the general link; great lovers of their country are rude and uncivil to strangers; they look upon them only in the common light as men, and as unworthy of their regard. This inconveniency is inevitable, but of no great consequence. The point is, to behave kindly towards our fellow-subjects. Abroad, the Spartans were ambitious, avaricious, and unjust; while disinterestedness, equity, and concord reigned within their walls. Beware of those cosmopolites who pore over old books in search of duties, which they neglect to fulfill within their own communities. Thus you will see a philosopher admiring the Tartars, in order to be excused from loving his neighbors.

  Man in his natural state is all for himself; he is the numerical unit or the absolute integer, that refers only to himself, or to his likeness. Man in the civil state is a fractionary unit, who depends on the denominator, and whose value consists in his relation to the integer, namely, the body politic. Among social institutions, those are the best, which are best adapted for divesting man of his natural state; for depriving him of his absolute, to give him a relative, existence; in short, for transferring self to a common unit; to the end, that each individual may no longer consider himself as one, but as part of a unit, and have no sense or feeling but in conjunction with the whole. A Roman citizen was neither Caius nor Lucius,—he was a Roman; but he loved his country exclusive of himself, Regulus pretended to be a Carthaginian, as he was become the property of his masters. In the quality of a stranger, he refused to take his seat in the Roman senate; and before he would comply, he insisted upon receiving orders from a Carthaginian. With indignation he beheld the endeavors used to save his life. He carried his point, and returned triumphant to Carthage, to resign his last breath amidst the most exquisite tortures. Here we behold a man of quite a different stamp from those of the present age.