The German literary hero Goethe believed that Voltaire marked the end of the Old World, and Rousseau represented the birth of the New World. Of these two, one was the "King of French Thought" and the other was "Newton of the Moral World," and they were buried in the most prominent position in the Pantheon. Voltaire may not have expected to be a neighbor to Rousseau, an unknown person, after death, and Rousseau may not want to be with the most hated person around him.
Voltaire once said: "I have only seen Monsieur Rousseau in my life, twenty-five years ago, in Paris. It was this man who had only one side of the relationship that gradually attracted his attention and became the object of verbal criticism in his later years, and he also wrote many bad words for this purpose. Rousseau's mental journey toward Voltaire gradually changed from reverence in his early years to disgust in his later years. In the tenth volume of the Confessions, a long letter to Voltaire was copied, in which he said bluntly: "I do not like you at all, sir. You have inflicted all kinds of pain on me as a protégé and your ardent advocates... In short, I hate you! ”
Why did two of the most famous figures of the Enlightenment break up and become enemies for life? This must start from their life deeds, and then analyze the ideas and propositions, and finally draw conclusions.
Voltaire and Rousseau
<h1>Rousseau's initial admiration of Voltaire</h1>
Voltaire and Rousseau differed by 18 years in age, and when the former published Oedipus the King and caused a sensation in the Paris literary scene, the latter was a child who read novels with his father. After becoming famous, Voltaire gradually rose to the top of high society, while Rousseau was still living a difficult apprenticeship life.
In 1726, Voltaire was framed by the nobility and forced into exile in England. During his years in a foreign land, he wrote Henry Yardard and Philosophical Correspondence. Rousseau had just finished his wanderings in Turin and was back with Madame Warren, and he found several books in his room, including Henriard, and this was the first time he became interested in Voltaire. Rousseau told a friend: "I was fascinated by this writer, and reading his books aroused my desire to write with elegance and imitate his literary style. In the Confessions, Rousseau also acknowledges that Voltaire's Philosophical Correspondence had a great influence on him, and that reading Voltaire's works helped to set ambitions.
In order to attract the attention of his idols, Rousseau began to devote himself to the creation of drama, and many of his works have traces of imitations of Voltaire. It was almost a dozen years before Voltaire first noticed him—at that time, Rousseau was appreciated by the Duke of Richelieu for his opera The Merry Poet; Voltaire was in need of an assistant to help revise the script, so Richelieu recommended Rousseau to him. Voltaire did not pay much attention to this assistant, he simply sent the manuscript over, without even meeting it; Rousseau, when he received the manuscript, immediately made revisions, and on December 11, 1745, he returned the script, and complimented him in the letter:
"Sir, for fifteen years I have been working hard to make myself worthy of your attention and your promotion of the little talented rising star..."
Voltaire wrote back with a few suggestions that needed to be revised, politely praised Rousseau, and said, "I hope to be your friend ... I hope I have the privilege of thanking you soon. However, this is just a polite remark, and the great literary hero does not pay attention to this nameless pawn. For the next five years, they did not have any contact, until Rousseau entered the circle of philosophers composed of Diderot, Condiac and others, and published his famous work "On Science and Art" and again attracted Voltaire's attention.
Rousseau's Autobiography Confessions
<h1>Voltaire's disagreement with Rousseau began to emerge</h1>
In 1750, at the suggestion of Diderot, Rousseau participated in a contest for essays at the Academy of Dijon, which was awarded for On Science and Art. In the article, he attacked the harm of science and art to human morality, arguing that they were not conducive to moral sublimation, and the principle of "nature" was first mentioned in the text.
Voltaire does not seem to have read the article, and Rousseau does not mention himself as the author of the article in his letter to him. But Voltaire once commented to a friend: "I even think it is inconceivable that a academy can doubt that literature and art can sublimate morality." He called the winning essay absurd and called it "a propositional essay written by schoolchildren for the Dijon Academy Award." He may not have known that Rousseau was the author of this article.
Here, the ideological differences between Rousseau and Voltaire have begun to emerge. As a philosophical principle of Rousseau is "nature", he worships the state of nature, advocates natural education, believes that science and art do not contribute to moral enlightenment, since the suffering of the social state has been so much, it is better to return to the natural state of the primitive era; while Voltaire's philosophical principle is "reason", he believes that the development of history is the process of human spiritual progress, science and art play an indelible role. He believed that human civilization is constantly evolving, that reason will triumph over superstition and error, and that we will be greeted by a new era of enlightenment.
Four years later, when Rousseau sent Voltaire another anti-civilization and nature-advocating book, On the Origin and Basis of Human Inequality, the latter ridiculed in his reply, saying:
"Sir, I have received your new book against humanity, and I am deeply grateful... After reading your book, people want to crawl on all fours. ”
In addition, Voltaire privately wrote many fierce commentaries on On Inequality: When Rousseau said that barbarians were "docile and happy", Voltaire commented: "Do you know that the tribes of North America are nearly extinct in their conquests?" Second, when Rousseau believed that private property was the origin of inequality, on the basis of which there was an unequal relationship between the strong and the weak, the poor and the rich, and the master and the slave, Voltaire angrily exclaimed, "This is the so-called philosophy of the poor ghost."
The idol directly criticized his own views, which made Rousseau feel somewhat disappointed. Only then did he find that he did not agree with Voltaire's claims, and that there was a sharp contradiction between "nature" and "reason", and that this would be the beginning of a break between the two.
Voltaire advocated "reason", Rousseau advocated "nature"
<h1>The difference in the thinking of Voltaire and Rousseau</h1>
Rousseau's yearning for the state of nature was more or less due to his disappointment with reality, and he believed that human misfortune came from its "imperfection", but that human nature was good and that it was possible to overcome misfortune as long as heeded the call of the heart; Voltaire saw this as an affront to "reason", and he believed that we needed to gather under the banner of science, replace the authority of religion with reason, and establish a beautiful kingdom of reason- which was also the view of most Enlightenment thinkers of the eighteenth century. Rousseau did not see it this way, and he believed that the substitution of reason for God, placing him in a supreme position, would inevitably make man a slave to reason, as in the past. In the past, people succumbed to the authority of theological religion, and in the future they will succumb to the authority of science and technology, and the former is no more deplorable than the latter. Voltaire did not attach importance to Rousseau and did not fully understand his writings, which made Rousseau feel that the gap was gradually deepening, and he also had a place in the literary world at this time, so he decided to defend his views.
Voltaire was deeply touched by the earthquake in Lisbon in 1755, and the following year he published a collection of poems in Geneva, which contained many views on natural religions and pessimistic thoughts. When Rousseau read this, he thought that Voltaire was a bit pretentious, so he sent him a letter saying that he was free and well fed, but asserted that everything on earth was evil. And he was sick and poor, but he could have fun in seclusion, and everything was good—criticizing Voltaire for pampering and moaning without illness. Some believe that Rousseau wrote the letter in retaliation for Voltaire's previous criticism, and others that he was trying to gain fame, but Rousseau's real purpose seems to be to provoke a philosophical controversy in order to make his views public.
When Voltaire received the letter, he did not intend to dwell on it, and he replied that "all these philosophical discussions are just a pastime", and that he was sick and would discuss it when he was well. At the end of the letter, he says, "Although I sometimes like to tell a few harsh jokes, of all the people you meet, no one will genuinely like you as much as I do," as if to explain that he had no intention of arguing with Rousseau. Judging from Voltaire's letters to other friends, he was not afraid of offending Rousseau, but disdained to argue with this man, and he did not think that Rousseau's writings were worth talking about.
In the days that followed, Rousseau published Emile, Social Contract, etc., and at this time Voltaire had entered his twilight years, and he did not seem to realize that the gap between himself and Rousseau in the literary world was gradually narrowing, so the argument was always manifested as one side being careless and the other side being aggressive.
It was not until after the political dispute in Geneva that Voltaire took notice of Rousseau and regarded him as a dangerous opponent. When Rousseau learned of Voltaire's initiative to build a theater in Geneva, he finally couldn't sit still. Soon after, he published "Letter on Drama", arguing that theater would be harmful to the folk customs of Geneva, and became a means for the ruling clique to sway public opinion and endanger the political system of the republic. Voltaire didn't care at first, he said, "Jean Jacques said it was not suitable for a theater in Geneva, but I wanted to open one." As a result, the differences became more and more varied, and people chose to take sides, either in favor of Rousseau or in support of Voltaire, and the ideological differences between the two expanded from philosophy to politics. Rousseau was so outraged that he wrote to Voltaire:
"You ruined Geneva... You divorced my countrymen and me... You have made it impossible for me to accommodate my country, and you have forced me to die elsewhere..."
From this letter, Rousseau finally got the "attention" of his idol and became the object of his greatest disgust.
Rousseau advocated republicanism, while Voltaire was devoted to enlightened monarchs
<h1>Why did Rousseau hate Voltaire? </h1>
Rousseau's attitude toward Voltaire went through three stages of worship, disappointment and hatred, and the reason why he broke with Voltaire was probably because of the values, political views and origins of the two, of course, this is not unrelated to Rousseau's overly sensitive personality.
Voltaire turned from careless to fierce criticism of Rousseau, seemingly irritated by Rousseau's repeated "provocations", and he also began to comment on Rousseau's works "seriously". Voltaire argued that Rousseau's New Eloise would be a disgrace to our century if it succeeded, and then attacked The Social Contract as "an obscure, reasonless, contradictory book."
Not to be outdone, Rousseau published a Letter from the Mountain, accusing Voltaire of colluding with the priest who persecuted him and writing articles against Christ at the same time; this time voltaire was infuriated, and he wrote a series of articles attacking Rousseau, including a book "The Feelings of the Citizens", accusing Rousseau of abandoning his wife and children, and for this, Rousseau also defended himself with the famous Confessions. It is a pity that their later polemics have degenerated into personal attacks and lack of ideological philosophical controversies.
In 1778, Voltaire and Rousseau died one after another, and their feud was never resolved. But Voltaire said in his will: "When I left the world, I loved God, loved my friends, and did not envy my enemies" - I wonder if Rousseau was included?