Emile | Page 4

we have just shown, it is the goal of nature. Since all three modes
of education must work together, the two that we can control must follow the lead of that
which is beyond our control. Perhaps this word Nature has too vague a meaning. Let us
try to define it.
Nature, we are told, is merely habit. What does that mean? Are there not habits formed
under compulsion, habits which never stifle nature? Such, for example, are the habits of
plants trained horizontally. The plant keeps its artificial shape, but the sap has not
changed its course, and any new growth the plant may make will be vertical. It is the
same with a man's disposition; while the conditions remain the same, habits, even the
least natural of them, hold good; but change the conditions, habits vanish, nature reasserts
herself. Education itself is but habit, for are there not people who forget or lose their
education and others who keep it? Whence comes this difference? If the term nature is to
be restricted to habits conformable to nature we need say no more.
We are born sensitive and from our birth onwards we are affected in various ways by our
environment. As soon as we become conscious of our sensations we tend to seek or shun
the things that cause them, at first because they are pleasant or unpleasant, then because
they suit us or not, and at last because of judgments formed by means of the ideas of
happiness and goodness which reason gives us. These tendencies gain strength and
permanence with the growth of reason, but hindered by our habits they are more or less

warped by our prejudices. Before this change they are what I call Nature within us.
Everything should therefore be brought into harmony with these natural tendencies, and
that might well be if our three modes of education merely differed from one another; but
what can be done when they conflict, when instead of training man for himself you try to
train him for others? Harmony becomes impossible. Forced to combat either nature or
society, you must make your choice between the man and the citizen, you cannot train
both.
The smaller social group, firmly united in itself and dwelling apart from others, tends to
withdraw itself from the larger society. Every patriot hates foreigners; they are only men,
and nothing to him.[Footnote: Thus the wars of republics are more cruel than those of
monarchies. But if the wars of kings are less cruel, their peace is terrible; better be their
foe than their subject.] This defect is inevitable, but of little importance. The great thing
is to be kind to our neighbours. Among strangers the Spartan was selfish, grasping, and
unjust, but unselfishness, justice, and harmony ruled his home life. Distrust those
cosmopolitans who search out remote duties in their books and neglect those that lie
nearest. Such philosophers will love the Tartars to avoid loving their neighbour.
The natural man lives for himself; he is the unit, the whole, dependent only on himself
and on his like. The citizen is but the numerator of a fraction, whose value depends on its
denominator; his value depends upon the whole, that is, on the community. Good social
institutions are those best fitted to make a man unnatural, to exchange his independence
for dependence, to merge the unit in the group, so that he no longer regards himself as
one, but as a part of the whole, and is only conscious of the common life. A citizen of
Rome was neither Caius nor Lucius, he was a Roman; he ever loved his country better
than his life. The captive Regulus professed himself a Carthaginian; as a foreigner he
refused to take his seat in the Senate except at his master's bidding. He scorned the
attempt to save his life. He had his will, and returned in triumph to a cruel death. There is
no great likeness between Regulus and the men of our own day.
The Spartan Pedaretes presented himself for admission to the council of the Three
Hundred and was rejected; he went away rejoicing that there were three hundred Spartans
better than himself. I suppose he was in earnest; there is no reason to doubt it. That was a
citizen.
A Spartan mother had five sons with the army. A Helot arrived; trembling she asked his
news. "Your five sons are slain." "Vile slave, was that what I asked thee?" "We have won
the victory." She hastened to the temple to render thanks to the gods. That was a citizen.
He who would preserve the supremacy of natural feelings in social life knows not what
he asks. Ever at war with himself, hesitating between his wishes and his duties, he will be
neither