But I have revealed to you the great and true principles of art. I say of art! of all the arts,
gentlemen, and of all the sciences. The analysis of colors, the calculation of prismatic
refractions, give you the only exact relations in nature, the rule of all relations. And
everything in the universe is nothing but relations. Thus one knows everything when one
knows how to paint; one knows everything when one knows how to match colors.
“What are we to say to a painter sufficiently devoid of feeling and taste to think like that,
stupidly restricting the pleasurable character of his art to its mere mechanics? What shall we
say of a musician, similarly quite prejudiced, who considers harmony the sole source of the
great effect of music. Let us consign the first to housepainting and condemn the other to doing
French opera” [p. 55].
40.It is in that passage of the first book which explains how “in this manner I learnt to covet
in silence, to dissemble, to lie, and, lastly, to steal” (p. 32) [p. 30]. For various reasons the
following passage, coming a little before the above, appears to me to be worth rereading at
this point: “The trade in itself was not disagreeable to me: I had a decided taste for drawing;
the handling of a graving-tool amused me; and as the claims upon the skill of a watchmaker’s
engraver were limited. I hoped to attain perfection. I should, perhaps, have done so, had not
my master’s brutality and excessive restraint disgusted me with my work. I stole some of my
working hours to devote to similar occupations, but which had for me the charm of freedom. I
engraved medals for an order of knighthood for myself and my companions. My master
surprised me at this contraband occupation, and gave me a sound thrashing, declaring that I
was training for a coiner, because our medals bore the arms of the Republic. I can swear that I
had no idea at all of bad, and only a very faint one of good, money. I knew better how the
Roman As was made than our three-sou pieces” [p. 30].
41.The closest reference here leads to Condillac. Cf. the chapter “On the Origin of Poetry,” in
An Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge (1756) .
42.This fragment, the manuscript of which is lost, was published in i861 by Streckeisen-
Moultou. It is reprinted in the Pléiade edition of the Political Fragments (vol. III, p. 529),
under the title « L’influence des climats sur la civilisation. »
43.Rousseau adds in a note: “Turkish is a northern tongue” [p. 49 n. 1].
44.The word “suppléer” [to compensate] appears also in the text on Pronunciation in
connection with accent (p. 1249).
45.Cf. also the Projet concernant de nouveaux signes pour la musique (1742), the
Dissertation sur la musique moderne (1743),
Emile, p. 162 [p. 114] (the entire develop-ment
that begins with “You may perhaps suppose that as I am in no hurry to teach
((347))
Emile to read and write, I shall not want to teach him to read music”), and J. Starobinski, La
transparence et l’obstacle, pp. 177 f.
46.With regard to the oratorical intonation which “modifies the very substance of discourse,
without perceptibly altering prosodic accent,” Duclos concludes: “In writing we mark
interrogation and surprise; but how many movements of the soul, and consequently how many
oratorical inflections, do we possess, that have no written signs, and that only intelligence and
sentiment may make us grasp! Such are the inflections that mark anger, scorn, irony, etc.,
etc.” (p. 416).
47.Cf. Derathé, Rousseau et la science politique de son temps, p. 175.
48.Jean Mosconi shows that the state of pure Nature is not absent from the Essay and that the
“age of ‘huts’ has . . . in the two texts, nothing comparable,” “Analyse et genèse:, regards sur
la théorie du devenir de l’entendement au XVIIIe siècle,” Cahiers pour l’analyse, 4, [Sept.—
Oct., 19661: 75.
49.In its elements at least, this argument does not belong to Rousseau. It owes a great deal
particularly to Condillac’s Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge (the first section on
“The Origin and Progress of Language”). Through Condillac, we are also brought back to
Warburton (op. cit.). Probably also to the Réflexions critiques sur la poésie et la .peinture of
the abbé Du Bos ([Paris,] 1719) notably to Chapter 35 on the origin of languages, and to the
Rhétorique [ou l’Art de Pdrler, third edition (Paris, 1688) ] of Father Lamy who is cited
elsewhere in the Essay. On these problems, we refer to the Pléiade edition of the second
Discourse by J. Starobinski (especially to p. 151, n. 1) and to his fine analysis of the theme of
the sign in La transparence et l’obstacle
(pp. 169 f.) .
50. With regard to the “natural language” of the child: “To the language of intonation [voix] is
added the no less forcible language of gesture. The child uses, not its weak hands, but its
face” (Emile, p. 45; italics added) [p. 32].
51.”Psychonanalysis will tell us that in dreams dumbness is a common representation of
death” (Freud, “The Theme of the Three Caskets,” [SE XII, 295; GW X, 24—37]. Rousseau
too says in the Reveries that silence “offers us an image of death” (p.1047).
52.One finds all these examples once again, and presented in related terms, in Book 4 of
Emile. It is a praise of the economy of speech in the eloquence of antiquity: “The most
startling speeches were expressed not in words but in signs; they were not uttered but shown.
A thing beheld by the eyes kindles the imagination, stirs the curiosity, and keeps the mind on
the alert for what we are about to say, and often enough the thing tells the whole story.
Thrasybulus and Tarquin cutting off the heads of the poppies, Alexander placing his seal on
the lips of his favourite, Diogenes marching before Zeno, do not these speak more plainly
than if they had uttered long orations? What flow of words could have expressed the ideas as
clearly?” (p. 40iß) [p. 287].
53.This story, which all great works on writing recall, comes to us from Clement of
Alexandria and Herodotus. Rousseau had perhaps read it in Warburton’s The Essay on
Hieroglyphs: “The story is told by
Clemens Alexandrinus in these Words:
It is said that
Idanthura, a King of the Scythians, as Pherecydes Syrius relates it, when ready to oppose
Darius, who had passed the Ister, sent the Persian a Symbol instead of Letters, namely, a
Mouse, a Frog, a Bird, a Dart and a Plow. Thus this Message being to supply both Speech