Rousseau's conversion
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
In what has been called the most famous passage in the Confessions, Jean-Jacques Rousseau recounts how, while walking to Vincennes to visit the imprisoned Diderot (who was doing time for writing "Letter on the Blind") , he reads in the Mercure de France a question posed for an essay competition: "Has the progress of the arts and sciences contributed to the purification or the corruption of morals?"
In 1749, Rousseau was paying daily visits to Diderot, who had been thrown into the fortress of Vincennes under a lettre de cachet for opinions in his "Lettre sur les aveugles," that hinted at materialism, a belief in atoms, and natural selection. Rousseau had read about an essay competition sponsored by the Académie de Dijon to be published in the Mercure de France on the theme of whether the development of the arts and sciences had been morally beneficial. He wrote that while walking to Vincennes (about three miles from Paris), he had a revelation:
- "Within an instant of reading this [advertisement], I saw another universe and became another man."
He later wrote that the arts and sciences were responsible for the moral degeneration of mankind, who were basically good by nature. Rousseau's 1750 "Discourse on the Arts and Sciences", in which he made that argument, was awarded the first prize and gained him significant fame.
More from his Confessions:
- "What I distinctly remember on this occasion is, that on my arrival at Vincennes I was in a state of agitation bordering upon madness. Diderot perceived it. I told him the reason, and read to him the Prosopopoea of Fabricius, written in pencil under an oak-tree. He encouraged me to allow my ideas to have full play, and to compete for the prize. I did so, and from that moment I was lost. The misfortunes of the remainder of my life were the inevitable result of this moment of madness."
See also
