Epistle Dedicatory
To the Republic of Geneva
Magnificent, Most Honored, and Sovereign Lords,
[1] Convinced that only the virtuous Citizen may fittingly present to his Fatherland honors it may acknowledge, I have worked for the past thirty years to deserve to offer you some public homage; and this happy occasion making up in part for what my efforts have not been able to do, I believed I might here be permitted to heed the zeal that animates me more than right that should authorize me. Having had the good fortune to be born among you, how could I meditate about the equality nature established among men and the inequality they have instituted, without giving thought to the profound wisdom with which both, happily combined in this State, concur in the manner most closely approximating natural law and most favorable to society, to the preservation of public order and to the happiness of private individuals? In looking for the best maxims good sense might dictate regarding the constitution of a government, I was so struck to see them all implemented in yours that, even if I had not been born within your walls, I would have believed myself unable to refrain from offering this picture of human society to the one People that seems to me to possess its greatest advantages and to have best forestalled its abuses.
[2] If I had had to choose where to be born, I would have chosen a society of a size limited to the range of human faculties, that is to say to the possibility of being well governed, and where, everyone being equal to his task, no one would have been compelled to commit to others the functions with which he was himself charged: a State where, since all individuals know one another, neither the shady stratagems of vice nor the modesty of virtue could have escaped the Public’s gaze and judgment, and where this gentle habit of seeing and knowing one another would have made the love of the Fatherland a love of the Citizens rather than of the land.
[3] I would have wished to be born in a country where the Sovereign and the people could have but one and the same interest, so that all the motions of the machine might always tend only to the common happiness; since this cannot be unless the People and the Sovereign are one and the same person, it follows that I should have wished to be born under a democratic government wisely tempered.
[4] I would have wished to live and die free, that is to say so far subject to the laws that neither I nor anyone else could shake off their honorable yoke; the salutary and gentle yoke which the proudest heads bear with all the more docility as they are made to bear none other.
[5] I would have wished, then, that no one inside the State could have declared himself to be above the law, and No one outside it could have imposed any [law] which the State was obliged to recognize. For, regardless of how a government is constituted, if a single person in it is not subject to the law, all the others are necessarily at his discretion (I); and if there is one national Chief, and another foreign Chief, then regardless of the division of authority they may establish, it is impossible for both to be well obeyed and the State well governed.
[6] I would not have wished to live in a newly established Republic, regardless of how good its laws might be, for fear that, if the government were perhaps constituted differently than it should have been under the circumstances, either by being ill-suited to the new Citizens or the Citizens to the new government, the State might be liable to be overthrown and destroyed almost from birth. For freedom is like the solid and hearty foods or the full-bodied wines fit to feed and fortify robust temperaments used to them, but that overwhelm, ruin and intoxicate weak and delicate ones that are not up to them. Once Peoples are accustomed to Masters, they can no longer do without them. If they attempt to shake off the yoke, they only move further away from freedom because, since they mistake unbridled license for freedom, which is its very opposite, their revolutions almost always deliver them up to seducers who only make their chains heavier. Even the Roman People, that model of all free Peoples, could not govern itself on emerging from the Tarquins’ oppression. Degraded by the slavery and the ignominious labors the Tarquins had imposed on it, it was at first but a stupid Populace that had to be handled with care and governed with the utmost wisdom; so that these souls, enervated, or rather numbed under the tyranny, as they little by little grew accustomed to breathe the salutary air of freedom, might gradually acquire that severity of morals and that proud courage that eventually made of them the most respectable of all Peoples. I would, then, have sought out as my Fatherland a happy and quiet Republic of an antiquity lost, as it were, in the night of the ages; that had been subject only to such attacks as are apt to stimulate and to strengthen its inhabitants’ courage and love of Fatherland, and whose Citizens, accustomed by long experience to a wise independence, not only were free, but were worthy of being so.
[7] I would have wished to choose for myself a Fatherland diverted from the fierce love of Conquest by a fortunate powerlessness, and protected by an even more fortunate location from the fear of itself becoming the Conquest of some other State: A free City, situated in the midst of a number of Peoples none of which had any interest in invading it, but each of which had an interest in preventing the others from invading it: In a word, a Republic which did not tempt the ambition of its neighbors, and might reasonably count on their help in case of need. It follows that, being so fortunately situated, it would have had nothing to fear but from itself alone; and that if its Citizens had military training, it would have been more in order to keep alive in them that martial spirit and proud courage that so becomes freedom and maintains the taste for it, than from the necessity of providing for their own defense.
[8] I would have sought out a Country where the right of legislation was common to all Citizens; for who could know better than they the conditions under which it suits them to live together in one society? But I would not have approved of Plebiscites like those of the Romans, where the Chiefs of the State and those most interested in its preservation were excluded from the deliberations on which its security often depended, and where, by an absurd inconsistency, the Magistrates were deprived of rights enjoyed by ordinary Citizens.
[9] On the contrary, in order to forestall the self-seeking and ill-conceived projects and the dangerous innovations that finally ruined the Athenians, I would have wished that not everyone have the power to propose new Laws according to his fancy; that this right belong to the Magistrates alone; even that they exercise it so circumspectly that the People, for its part, be so wary to grant its consent to these Laws, and that their promulgation require so much solemnity that, before the constitution became unstable, there had been time to realize that it is above all the great antiquity of the Laws that renders them sacred and venerable, that the People soon scorn those they see change daily, and that, by getting used to neglecting ancient ways on the pretext of doing better, great evils are often introduced to correct lesser ones.
[10] I would above all have fled as necessarily ill-governed a Republic where the People, believing it could do without its Magistrates or leave them no more than a precarious authority, had imprudently retained the administration of Civil affairs and the execution of its own Laws in its own hands; such must have been the rude constitution of the first governments arising immediately from the state of Nature, and it also was one of the Vices that ruined the Republic of Athens.
[11] Rather, I would have chosen one where private persons, content to ratify the Laws and decide the most important public business in a Body and on the recommendation of the Chiefs, established respected tribunals, carefully distinguished their various functions, yearly elected the most capable and the most upright among their Fellow-Citizens to administer Justice and govern the State; and where the Virtue of the Magistrates thus bearing witness to the wisdom of the People, each would do the other honor. So that if ever fatal misunderstandings were to disturb the public harmony, even those times of blindness and errors might be marked by evidence of moderation, mutual esteem, and a shared respect for the Laws; harbingers and guarantees of a sincere and everlasting reconciliation.
[12] Such, magnificent, most honored and sovereign lords, are the advantages I would have sought in the Fatherland I would have chosen. If, to these, providence had added a lovely location, a temperate Climate, a fertile soil, and the most delightful vistas under Heaven, I should only have wished, in order to complete my happiness, to enjoy all of these goods in the bosom of this happy Fatherland, living peacefully in the sweet society of my Fellow-Citizens, practicing toward them, and at their example, humanity, friendship, and all the virtues, and leaving behind the honorable memory of a good man and an honest and virtuous Patriot.
[13] If, less happy or too late grown wise, I saw myself reduced to ending a lame and languishing career in other Climes, in vain regretting the quiet and the Peace of which a youthful want of prudence would have deprived me; I would at least have fostered in my soul the very sentiments that I could not exercise in my country, and, imbued with tender and selfless affection for my distant Fellow-Citizens, I would have addressed to them from the bottom of my heart approximately the following discourse.
[14] My dear Fellow-Citizens or rather my brothers, since ties of blood as well as the Laws unite almost all of us, it pleases me that I cannot think of you without at the same time thinking of all the goods you enjoy and of which perhaps none of you feels the value better than I who have lost them. The more I reflect on your Political and Civil situation, the less can I imagine that the nature of human things could admit of a better. In all other Governments, when it is a question of providing for the greatest good of the State, everything is always restricted to ideas for projects, and at most to mere possibilities. As for yourselves, your happiness is complete, you have only to enjoy it; and all you need in order to become perfectly happy is to know how to be content with being so. Your Sovereignty, acquired or recovered at sword’s point and maintained for two centuries by dint of valor and wisdom, is at last fully and universally recognized. Honorable Treaties fix your boundaries, insure your rights, and confirm your security. Your constitution is excellent, dictated by the most sublime reason and guaranteed by friendly and respectable Powers; your State enjoys tranquility, you have neither wars nor conquerors to fear; you have no other masters than wise laws, made by yourselves, administered by upright Magistrates of your own choosing; you are neither so rich as to become enervated by softness and to lose the taste for true happiness and solid virtues in vain delights, nor so poor as to need more foreign assistance than your industry provides; and it costs you almost nothing to preserve the precious freedom which large Nations can maintain only by means of exorbitant Taxes.
[15] May a Republic so wisely and so happily constituted last forever, both for its Citizens’ happiness, and as an example to all Peoples! This is the only wish it remains for you to make, and the only care it remains for you to take. Henceforth it is up to yourselves alone not, indeed, to provide for your happiness, your Ancestors have spared you that trouble, but to make it long-lasting by the wisdom of using it well. Your preservation depends on your everlasting union, your obedience to the laws, your respect for their Ministers. If there remains among you the least germ of bitterness or mistrust, hasten to destroy it as a fatal leaven that would sooner or later bring about your miseries and the State’s ruin: I implore all of you to return to the depths of your Heart and to consult the secret voice of your conscience: Does anyone of you know anywhere in the universe a more upright, more enlightened, or more respectable Body than your Magistrature? Do not all of its members offer you an example of moderation, of simplicity of morals, of respect for the laws, and of the most sincere reconciliation? then grant without reservations to these wise Chiefs the salutary trust which reason owes to virtue; remember that you have chosen them, that they justify your choice, and that the honors owed to those whom you have made dignitaries necessarily redound on yourselves. None of you is so unenlightened as not to know that where the laws lose their vigor and its defenders their authority there can be neither security nor freedom for anyone. What else, then, is at issue between you, than that you do wholeheartedly and with justified confidence what you would in any event have to do out of true interest, duty, and reason? May a guilty and fatal indifference to the preservation of the constitution never cause you to neglect in times of need the wise opinions of the most enlightened and zealous among you: Rather, may equity, moderation, and the most respectful firmness continue to regulate all your undertakings and through you exhibit to the entire universe the example of a proud and modest People as jealous of its glory as of its freedom. Above all, and this will be my last Advice, beware of ever heeding sinister interpretations and venomous discourses, the secret motives of which are often more dangerous than are the actions they are about. An entire household is awake and on the lookout at the first calls of a good and loyal Guardian who barks only when Thieves draw near; but people hate the importuning of the noisy animals that continually disturb the public peace, and their constant and misplaced warnings are not heeded even in time of need.
[16] And you, magnificent and most honored lords, you worthy and respectable Magistrates of a free People; allow me to offer my homage and respects to you in particular. If there is in the world a rank suited to confer distinction on those who occupy it, it is without a doubt the rank bestowed by talents and virtue, the rank of which you have proved yourselves worthy, and to which your Fellow-Citizens have raised you. Their own merit adds further luster to yours, and I find that for having been chosen to govern them by men capable of governing others, you are as much superior to all other Magistrates as a free People, and particularly the free people you have the honor of leading, is, by its enlightenment and reason, superior to the populace of other States.
[17] Allow me to cite an example of which there should be better records, and which will always be present to my Heart. I never recall without the sweetest emotion the memory of the virtuous Citizen to whom I owe my life, and who often throughout my childhood impressed on me the respect due you. I see him still, living by the work of his hands, and nourishing his soul with the most sublime Truths. I see Tacitus, Plutarch, and Grotius before him amidst the tools of his trade. I see at his side a beloved son receiving with too little profit the tender teachings of the best of Fathers. But if the excesses of a foolish youth caused me to forget such wise lessons for a time, I have the happiness of at last experiencing that, whatever may be one’s inclination to vice, an education in which the heart has a share is unlikely to be lost forever.
[18] Such are, magnificent and most honored lords, the Citizens and even the mere residents born in the State you govern; such are the educated and sensible men about whom they have such low and false ideas in other Nations, where they are called Workers and the People. My Father, I gladly admit it, was not outstanding among his fellow-citizens; he was but what they all are, and, such as he was, there is no Country where his society would not have been sought after, cultivated, and even profitably so, by the most honest people. It is not for me, and thank Heaven it is not necessary, to tell you how much regard men of such mettle can expect from you, your equals by education as well as by the rights of nature and of birth; your inferiors by their own will, by the preference which they owe to your merit, which they have granted to it, and for which you, in turn, owe them a kind of gratitude. I learn with lively satisfaction how much you, in your dealings with them, temper the gravity behooving the ministers of the Laws with gentleness and condescension; how much you reciprocate in esteem and attentions what they owe you by way of obedience and respect; conduct full of justice and of wisdom that is appropriate for putting increasingly far behind the memory of the unhappy events which must be forgotten if they are never to recur: conduct all the more judicious as this equitable and generous People makes its duty a pleasure, as it naturally loves to honor you, and as those who are most intent on upholding their rights are the ones who are most inclined to respect yours.
[19] It should not be surprising that the Chiefs of a Civil Society love its glory and happiness, but it is altogether too surprising for men’s peace of mind that those who look upon themselves as the Magistrates, or rather as the masters of a Fatherland more holy and more sublime, should exhibit any love for the earthly Fatherland that sustains them. How pleased I am to be able to make such a rare exception in our favor, and to rank among our best citizens those zealous trustees of the sacred dogmas authorized by the laws, those venerable Pastors of souls whose lively and sweet eloquence all the better conveys the maxims of the Gospel into men’s Hearts because they are themselves always the first to practice them! Everybody knows how successfully the great art of the Pulpit is cultivated in Geneva; But since they are all too accustomed to see things said one way and done another, few People know the extent to which the spirit of Christianity, sanctity of morals, severity toward oneself and gentleness toward others prevail in the Body of our Ministers. Perhaps only the City of Geneva can offer the edifying example of such a perfect union between a Society of Theologians and of Men of Letters. It is in large measure on their acknowledged wisdom and moderation, it is on their zeal for the State’s prosperity that I base the hope for its eternal tranquility; and I note with a mixture of pleasure, surprise, and respect how much they abhor the frightful maxims of those holy and barbarous men of whom History provides more than one example and who, in order to uphold the supposed rights of God, that is to say their own interest, were all the less sparing of human blood as they flattered themselves that their own would always be respected.
[20] Could I forget the precious half of the Republic that makes for the other’s happiness, and whose gentleness and wisdom preserve its peace and good morals? Amiable and virtuous Citizen-women, it will always be the lot of your sex to govern ours. How fortunate when your chaste power, exercised solely in conjugal union, makes itself felt only for the State’s glory and the public happiness: This is how women commanded in Sparta, and this is how you deserve to command in Geneva. What man would be so barbarous as to resist the voice of honor and reason from the mouth of a tender wife; and who would not despise vain luxury upon seeing your simple and modest attire which, by the radiance it owes to you, seems to complement beauty most? It is up to you always to preserve the love of the laws in the State, and Concord among the Citizens, by your amiable and innocent dominion and your winning wit; by happy marriages to reunite divided families; and above all, by the persuasive gentleness of your lessons and the modest graciousness of your conversation, to correct the misconceptions our young Men acquire in other countries from which, instead of the many useful things that could profit them, they only bring back, together with a childish tone and ridiculous airs adopted among lost women, an admiration for I know not what supposed grandeurs, the frivolous compensations for servitude, that will never be worth as much as august freedom. Therefore always be what you are, the chaste guardians of morals and the gentle bonds of peace, and continue at every opportunity to assert the rights of the Heart and of Nature on behalf of duty and of virtue.
[21] I flatter myself that the event will not prove me wrong, when I base the hope for the Citizens’ common happiness and the Republic’s glory on such guarantors. I admit that, for all of these advantages, it will not shine with the brilliance that dazzles most eyes, and a childish and fatal taste for which is the deadliest enemy of happiness and of freedom. Let dissolute youths go elsewhere in search of easy pleasures and lasting remorse: Let supposed men of taste admire elsewhere the grandeur of Palaces, the beauty of carriages, the sumptuous furnishings, the pomp of spectacles, and all the refinements of softness and luxury. In Geneva will be found only men, yet such a spectacle has its own value, and those who will seek it out will certainly be worth as much as those who admire the rest.
[22] Deign, magnificent, most honored and sovereign lords, all of you, to accept, with equal kindness, the respectful testimonies of the interest I take in your common prosperity. If I had the misfortune of being guilty of some indiscreet transport in this lively outpouring of my Heart, I beseech you to pardon it as due to the tender affection of a true Patriot, and the ardent and legitimate zeal of a man who envisions no greater happiness for himself than that of seeing all of you happy.
I am with the deepest respect
magnificent, most honored and sovereign lords,
Your most humble and most obedient
servant and Fellow-Citizen
Jean Jacques Rousseau
At Chambéry, 12 June 1754