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VI. The Rebirth of Nature
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The Rebirth of Nature VI In order to put the idea of the general will in the proper context , Rousseau's concept of the state of nature needs to be examined. It is evident that it is central to his political thought and philosophical doctrine in general. In the First Discourse Rousseau argues that civilization has degraded and corrupted man. Deeply alienated from society, he identifies with the plight of the descendants of his own century who will beg "Almighty God" to "deliver us from the enlightenment and fatal arts of our forefathers, and give back to us ignorance , innocence, and poverty, the only goods that can give us happiness and are precious in thy sight." 1 This and many other passages in his works raise the much-debated question whether Rousseau wants a return to a primitive, pre-civilized existence. It is doubtful that it can ever be answered with finality. Rousseau himself appears not to have reached a definite conclusion, but wavers depending on his mood and the subject at hand. Especially in certain autobiographical writings he seems to be longing for some sort of pre-societal, anarchic life: "I have never been truly accustomed to civil society where all is worry, obligation, duty, and where my I Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The First and Second Discourses, ed. Roger D. Masters and trans. Roger D. Masters and Judith R. Masters (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1964), First Discourse, 62. 102 THE REBIRTH OF NATURE 103 natural independence renders me always incapable of the subjections necessary to whoever wishes to live amongst men." 2 But in other places he rules out the possibility of actually returning to a primitive existence. In Rousseau Judges Jean-Jacques he claims to have shown in his works that humanity was happier in this "original state," but he goes on to say that "human nature does not turn back. Once man has left it, he can never return to the time of innocence and equality." 3 Even in Emile, which displays more of an individualistic and anarchistic tendency than The Social Contract , Rousseau denies that when he sets out to "train a natural man" he wants to "make him a savage and to send him back to the woods." 4 But the clearest indication that he does not envision, or even hope for, a return to pre-societal conditions is the following passage in The Social Contract which expresses his yearning for a new society: And although in civil society man surrenders some of the advantages that belong to the state of nature, he gains in return far greater ones; his faculties are so exercised and developed, his mind so enlarged , his sentiments so ennobled, and his whole spirit so elevated that, if the abuse of his new condition did not in many cases lower him to something worse than what he had left, he should constantly bless the happy hour that lifted him for ever from the state of nature and from a narrow, stupid animal made a creature of intelligence and a man. 5 Rousseau never makes it entirely clear if he conceives of the state of nature as an actual historical state, or as an analytical tool, or both. He gives a somewhat different impres2 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Reveries ofa Solitary, Bk. VI, 132. 3 Translated in Cassirer, The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1963), 54. 4 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, Bk. IV, 217. 5 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, trans. Maurice Cranston (Harmondsworth : Penguin Books, 1968), Bk. I, Chap. VIII, 64-65. [3.135.183.187] Project MUSE (2024-04-19 13:51 GMT) 104 DEMOCRACY AND THE ETHICAL LIFE sion depending on his line of argument. The ambiguity is apparent in his description of it as "a state which no longer exists, which perhaps never existed, which probably never will exist, and about which it is nevertheless necessary to have precise notions in order to judge our present state correctly ." We do not have to resolve the question here. It is certain that, whatever else it is, the state of nature is a normative and analytical concept. In Rousseau's own words, it is employed in an effort of "hypothetical and conditional reasonings better suited to clarify the nature of things than to show their true origin." It is an attempt to isolate that element in human nature which is not the product of the degeneracy of historical society. When he writes about...