example as the particular instance of the purely “theoretical presentation of a concept
(Beispiel)” (S52 [p. 148]),
and in the notes to Uber
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Pedagogik [translated as
The Educational Theory of Immanuel Kant, by Edward Frank-lin
Buchner (Philadelphia, 1908) ], published in 1803?
36.”Mons. Rameau, insisting absolutely, in his system, that all our harmony should be drawn
from nature, has had recourse, for this purpose, to another experience of his own invention. . .
. But first, the experience is false. . . . Though we should suppose the truth of this experience,
this would be very far from removing the difficulties. If, as Mons. Rameau pretends, the
whole of harmony is derived from the resonance of a sonorous body, it does not then derive
from it the single vibrations of a sonorous body which does not resound. In effect, it is a
strange theory to derive from what does not resound, the principles of harmony; and it is
strange in physic, to make a sonorous body vibrate and not resound, as if the sound itself was
at all different from the air, shaken by these vibrations” [pp. 343-44].
37.Cf., for example, The Confessions, p. 334 [pp. 343-44].
38.”When we reflect, that of all the people of the earth, who all have a music and an air, the
Europeans are the only ones who have a harmony and concords, and who find this mixture
agreeable; when we reflect, that the world has continued so many years, without, amongst the
cultivation of the beaux arts throughout mankind in general, any one’s having known this
harmony; that no animal, no bird, no being in nature, produces any other concord than the
unison, no other music than melody; that the eastern languages, so sonorous, so musical; that
the Greek air, so delicate, so sensible, exercised with so much art, have never guided these
voluptuous people, fond of our harmony, that without it, their music had such prodigious
effects, that with it, ours is so weak; that lastly, if it was reserved for the northern nations,
whose rough and brutal organs are more touched with the eclat and noise of the voice, than
with sweetness of the accent, and the melody of the inflections, to make this vast discovery,
and to give it as a foundation of all the rules in art: When I say, we pay attention to the whole
of this, it is very difficult not to suspect that all our harmony is but a gothic and barbarous
invention, which we should never have followed if we had been more sensible of the true
beauties of art, and of music truly natural. Mons. Rameau, however, pretends that harmony is
the source of the greatest beauties in music; but this opinion has been contradicted by facts
and reason.—By facts, because all the great effects of music have ceased, and it has lost all its
energy and force since the invention of the counter point; to which I add, that beauties purely
harmonic, are ingenious beauties, which please only persons versed in the art; whereas the
true beauties of music, being those of nature, are, and ought to be, equally sensible to every
man, whether learned or ignorant.
“By reason, because harmony furnishes no imitation by which music, forming images, or
expressing sentiments, may be raised to the dramatic or imitative genus, which is the most
noble part of art, and the only one energetic. Every thing that expresses only the physic of
sounds, being greatly bounded in the pleasure which it gives us, and having very little power
over the human heart” (Dictionary) [pp. 191-92].
Let us note in passing that Rousseau admits to two things that he elsewhere denies: 1. That the
beauties of music are natural; 2. that there is an animal song, a song merely melodic, to be
sure, but consequently absolutely pure. Thus the meaning and function of the contradiction
within the handling of the concepts of nature and animality are confirmed: music, for
example, does not become what it is—human—and does not transgress animality except
through what threatens it with death: harmony.
39.Chapter 13, “On Melody,” is almost entirely given over to painting. We must cite this
remarkable page in extenso. Now more than ever, it is possible to comment on its irony in
more than one sense: “Imagine a country in which no one has any idea of drawing, but where
many people who spend their lives combining and mixing various shades of color are
considered to excel at painting. Those people would regard our painting precisely as we
consider Greek music. If they heard of the emotions aroused in us by beautiful paintings, the
spell of a pathetic scene, their scholars would rush into a ponderous investigation of the
material, comparing their colors to ours, determining whether our green is more delicate or
our red more brilliant. They would try to find out which color combinations drew tears, which
could arouse anger. The Burettes of that
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country would examine just a few tattered scraps of our paintings. Then they would ask with
surprise what is so remarkable about such coloring.
“And, if a start were made in a neighboring country toward the development of line and
stroke, an incipient drawing, some still imperfect figure, it would all be treated as merely
capricious, baroque daubing. And, for the sake of taste, one would cling to this simple style,
which really expresses nothing, but brilliantly produces beautiful nuances, big slabs of color,
long series of gradually shaded hues, without a hint of drawing.
“Finally, the power of progress would lead to experiments with the prism. And immediately
some famous artist would base a beautiful system on it. Gentlemen, he will tell you, true
philosophy requires that things be traced to physical causes. Behold the analysis of light;
behold the primary colors; observe their relations, their proportions. These are the true
principles of the pleasure that painting gives you. All this mysterious talk of drawing,
representation, figure, is just the charlatanry of French painters who think that by their
imitations they can produce I know not what stirrings of the spirit, while it is known that
nothing is involved by sensation. You hear of the marvels of their pictures; but look at my
colors” [pp. 53-54].
And Rousseau prolongs yet further the imaginary discourse of this foreigner who is in fact
nothing other than the correspondent—foreigner and theoretician of painting—of a French
musician and musicographer, Rameau’s analogue. “French painters, he would continue, may
have seen a rainbow. Nature may have given them some taste for nuance, some sense of color.