The Present Debate: The Economy of Pity. The passages cited from Duclos are not the sole indications that allow modern commentators to conclude that the Essay comes after the second Discourse or that it is at the most its contemporary. B. Gagnebin and M. Raymond recall in their edition of the Confessions(7) that "the Essay on the Origin of Languages appeared for the first time in a volume of Treatises on Music by J. J. Rousseau which De Peyrou published in Geneva in 1781, based on the manuscript which he possessed and which he bequeath- ed to the Library of Neuchatel." The editors of the Confessions draw at- tention to "this most remarkable little work, too little read" and use the citations from Duclos as evidence for placing it after the second Discourse. "In short," they add, "the very material of the Essay pre- supposes a knowledge and a maturity of thought that Rousseau had not ac- quired in 1750." This is also the opinion of R. Derathe, at least on Chapter IX and X, which are among the most important and which, explaining the " Formation of the Languages of the South" and the "Formation of the Languages of the North," develop the themes most akin to those of the second Discourse. Is it not plausible--and tempting to imagine--that Rousseau might have spread out the composition of this text over many years? Can one not isolate in it many strata of his reflections? Could the passages from Duclos not have been introduced later? Could certain of the important chapters not have been composed, completed, or revised at the same time as the second Discourse Discourse or even after? That would reconcile the interpretations and would give a certain authority to the hypothesis of those who now place the con- ception, if not the entire execution, of the Essay well before 1754. Thus Vaughan thinks, for external reasons, that the Essay was planned before the second Discourse, and even before the first Discourse(1750). Indeed it re- lates very closely to the writings on music. Its full title says it well: Essay on the Origin of Languages, which treats of Melody, and Musical Imi- tation. It is known that the writings on music follow from a very precocious inspiration. In 1742 Rousseau read at the Academy of Sciences his Projet concernant les nouveaux signes pour la musique. In 1743 the Dissertation sur la musique moderne appeared. In 1749, year of the composition of the first Discourse, Rousseau wrote, at D'Alembert's behest, the articles on music for the Encyclopaedia. It is in the context of these articles that he will write the Dictionnaire de musique to which the Essay was joined at the time of its first publication. Can one not imagine that the Essay was projected at this time, even if its execution stretched out over many years, Rousseau modifying till 1754 certain intentions and certain chapters until he thought to make of the Essay, as he says in a "Preface," a piece of the second Discourse? However, in spite of the convenience and plausibility of this reconciling conjecture, there is one point at which, for internal and systematic rea- sons, it is difficult to get rid of the disagreement by assigning a period and a part of the truth to each hypothesis. Here one must choose sides. The moment comes with respect to the philosophical content of Chapter IX, "Formation of the Southern Languages." It is over the subject of this fun- damental chapter that Derathe and Starobinski differ. To be sure, they are never directly opposed on this point. But both give a note to it, and their confrontation may illuminate our problem. That the essay was an intended part of the second Discourse is, according to Derathe, "the most plausible hypothesis, at least with respect to Chapters IX and X ... which show the same preoccupations as The Discourse on Inequa- lity." Now, it is precisely in Chapter IX that Starobinski locates an affirmation which seems incompatible to him with the intention of the second Discourse. From it he concludes that Rousseau's thought had evolved. And it could only have evolved from the Essay to the Discourse, since the doctrine will seem- ingly no longer vary on this point after 1754. Thus, systematically and his- torically, the Essay is anterior to the second Discourse. And that would appear from an examination of the status given by him to that fundamental sentiment which according to him is pity. Briefly, the Discourse makes of it a natural feeling or virtue, coming before the use of reflection, while in the Essay, Rousseau seems to think that it is previously aroused [eveillee] --let us conserve all the indeterminacy of the word for the moment--by judge- ment. Since it gives rise to no disagreement, let us first recall the doctrine of the Discourse. Rousseau affirms there unambiguously that pity is more primi- tive than the work of reason and reflection. That is a condition of its uni- versality. And the argument could not help but aim at Hobbes: I think I need not fear contradiction in holding man to be possessed of the only natural virtue, which could not be denied him by the most violent de- tractor of human virtue. I am speaking of compassion [pitie], which is a disposition suitable to creatures so weak and subject to so many evils as we certainly are: by so much the more universal and useful to mankind, as it comes before any kind of reflection; and at the same time so natural, that the very brutes themselves sometimes give evident proofs of it. And after giving examples of it within the human and the animal order, but referring almost always to the mother-child relationship, Rousseau continues: Such is the pure emotion of nature, prior to all kinds of reflection! Such is the force of natural compassion [la pitie naturelle], which the greatest depravity of morals has as yet hardly been able to destroy! ... Mandeville well knew that, in spite of all their morality, men would have never been better than monsters, had not nature bestowed on them a sense of compassion [pitie], to aid their reason....It is then certain that compassion [pitie] is a natural feeling, which, by moderating the violence of love of self in each individual, contributes to the preservation of the whole species. It is this compassion [pitie] that hurries us without reflection to the relief of those who are in distress: it is this which in a state of nature supplies the place of laws, morals, and virtues, with the advantage that none are tempted to disobey its gentle voice. Let us pause before we take up the thread of the debate. Let us reconsider the system of metaphors. Natural pity, which is illustrated archetypically by the relationship between mother and child, and generally by the relation- ship between life and death, commands like a gentle voice. In the metaphor of that soft voice the presence of the mother as well as of Nature is at once brought in. That the soft voice must be the mother's as well as Nature's is clear from the fact that it is, as the metaphor of the voice clearly always indicates in Rousseau, a law. "No one is tempted to disobey it" at the same time because it is soft and because, being natural, and absolutely original, it is also inexorable. That maternal law is a voice. Pity is a voice. As opposed to writing, which is without pity, the voice is always, in its es- sence, the passage of virtue and good passion. The order of pity "takes the place of law," it supplements law, that is to say instituted law. But as institutional law is also the supplement of natural law when the latter is lacking, it is clear that only the concept of the supplement allows us to think the relationship between nature and law here. These two terms have no meaning except within the structure of supplementarity. The authority of nonmaternal law has no sense except as it is substituted for the authority of natural law, for the "gentle voice" which it was clearly necessary to be "tempted to disobey." The order without pity to which one accedes when the gentle voice stops making itself heard, is it quite simply, as we let it be imagined a moment ago, the order of writing? Yes and no. Yes, to the extent that writing is read literally, or is tied to the letter [on lit ecriture a la lettre, ou on la lie a la lettre]. No, as long as writing is understood in its metaphor. One might then say that the natural law, the gentle voice of pity, is not only uttered by a maternal solicitude, it is inscribed in our hearts by God. It concerns the natural writing, the writing of the heart, which Rousseau opposes to the writing of reason. Only the latter is without pity, it alone transgresses the interdict that, under the name of natural affection, links the child to the mother and protects life from death. To transgress the law and the voice of pity is to replace natural affection by perverse passion. The first is good because it is inscribed in our hearts by God. It is here that we encounter that divine or natural writing whose metaphoric displacement we have already situated. In Emile, describing what he calls the "second birth," Rousseau will write: Our passions are the chief means of self-preservation; to try to destroy them is therefore as absurd as it is useless; this would be to overcome nature, to reshape God's jandiwork. If God bade man annihilate the passions he has given him, He would and would not do so; He would contradict himself. He has never given such a foolish commandment, there is nothing like it writ- ten on the heart of man, and what God will have a man do, He does not leave to the words of another man, He speaks Himself; His words are written in the secret heart (pp. 246-47) [p. 173]. --

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