II.

Philosophical Writings

In 1750 Rousseau won the Academy of Dijon award for his Discours sur les Sciences et les Arts (Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts, 1750), and in 1752 his opera Le Devin du Village (The Village Sage) was first performed. In the former, and in his Discourse on the Origin of Inequality Among Mankind (1755; trans. 1761), he expounded the view that science, art, and social institutions have corrupted humankind and that the natural, or primitive, state is morally superior to the civilized state (see Naturalism). The persuasive rhetoric of these writings provoked derisive comments from the French philosopher Voltaire, who attacked Rousseau’s views, and subsequently the two philosophers became bitter enemies.

Rousseau left Paris in 1756 and secluded himself at Montmorency, where he wrote the romance Julie, or the New Eloise (1761; trans. 1773). In his famous political treatise The Social Contract (1762; trans. 1797) he developed a case for civil liberty and helped prepare the ideological background of the French Revolution by defending the popular will against divine right.