Reveries of the Solitary Walker (Oxford World's Classics)

by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  The following day, having set off to put this resolution into practice, the first thought that came to me as I started to reflect was of an awful lie* I had told when I was very young, the memory of which has troubled me throughout my life and even now in my old age further afflicts my heart, which is already stricken in so many other ways. This lie, which was a great crime in itself, must have been greater still in terms of its effects, which I have never known about but which my remorse has led me to assume were as cruel as could be. However, considering only my state of mind when I told it, this lie was simply a product of false shame, and far from its resulting from an intention to hurt the girl who was its victim, I can swear in the sight of Heaven that at the very moment when this invincible shame dragged it out of me, I would have gladly given every drop of my blood to have the effect fall on me alone instead. It is an instance of madness that I can only explain by saying what I feel to be true, namely that at that moment my innate timidity got the better of all the wishes of my heart.

  The memory of this unfortunate act and the unceasing remorse that it left me inspired in me a horror of lying that should have protected my heart from this vice for the rest of my life. When I adopted my motto, I felt I fully deserved it, and I had no doubt that I was worthy of it when, seeing the abbé Rozier’s inscription, I began examining myself more seriously.

  As I scrutinized myself more carefully, I was very surprised by the number of things I had invented that I remembered having said as if they were true at the very time when, proud in myself of my love of truth, I sacrificed to that love my security, my best interests, and my own person with a disinterestedness the like of which I have never seen in any other human being.

  What surprised me most was that, as I recalled these invented things, I felt no real remorse for them. I, whose horror of falsehood is completely unmatched in my heart by anything else and who would willingly endure torture if the alternative was to avoid it by lying, by what bizarre inconsistency could I thus lie so cheerfully, unnecessarily, and pointlessly, and by what inconceivable contradiction could I do so without feeling the slightest regret, when remorse for a lie has continually afflicted me for fifty years? I have never become inured to my faults; my moral instinct has always guided me well, and my conscience has retained its original integrity, and even if it had changed as it was swayed by my own interests, how could it lose its integrity solely over trivial matters where vice has no excuse, while maintaining its rectitude on those occasions when a man, driven by his passions, can at least excuse himself by his weakness? I realized that the accuracy of the judgement that I had to make about myself in this respect depended on the solution to this problem, and having examined it carefully, this is how I succeeded in explaining it to myself.

  I remember having read in a work of philosophy that lying is concealing a truth that one should make known.* It clearly follows from this definition that not telling a truth that one is not obliged to tell is not lying, but if someone who, not being prepared in such circumstances not to tell the truth, says the opposite of the truth, is he lying or not? According to the definition, one could not say that he is lying. For if he gives counterfeit money to a man to whom he owes nothing, he is deceiving that man, certainly, but he is not stealing from him.

  There are two questions that need to be examined here, both of them very important. The first is when and how one should tell others the truth, since one does not always have to. The second is if there are cases when one can deceive people innocently. To this second question there are very clear answers, as I know well: the answer is no in books, where the most austere morality costs the author nothing; the answer is yes in society, where the morality of books is seen as twaddle that is impossible to put into practice. So let us leave these authorities who contradict themselves and let us try, following my own principles, to answer these questions for myself.

  General and abstract truth is the most precious of all our possessions. Without it man is blind; it is the eye of reason. For through it man learns how to behave, to be what he ought to be, to do what he ought to do, and to strive towards his true purpose. Particular and individual truth is not always a good thing: sometimes it is a bad thing, very often it is an indifferent thing. Those things that it is important for a man to know, and the knowledge of which is necessary to his happiness, are perhaps not very numerous, but however numerous they may be, they are a possession that belongs to him, to which he is right to lay claim wherever he finds it, and of which one cannot deprive him without committing the most iniquitous of all thefts, for this knowledge is one of those possessions that are common to all, and passing it on does not leave the person who gives it in any way bereft.

  As for those truths that have no use whatsoever, neither for instruction nor in practical terms, how could they be something that is owed to us, since they are not even a possession? And since property is based only on usefulness, where there is no possible use, there can be no property. One may lay claim to a piece of land, even though it is barren, because at least one can live on it; but whether a trivial fact, entirely unimportant and of no consequence to anybody, is true or false, interests absolutely nobody. Nothing is useless in the moral order nor in the physical order. Nothing can be owed to anybody that is good for nothing: for a thing to be owed to somebody, it must be, or have the potential to be, useful. Thus the truth that is owed is that which concerns justice, and it is to profane the sacred name of truth to apply it to trivial things, the existence of which is a matter of indifference to everyone, and the knowledge of which is totally useless. Truth stripped of any kind of usefulness, even possible usefulness, can therefore not be a thing that is owed to anybody, and consequently anyone who conceals or disguises it is not lying.

  But are there any truths so completely sterile as to be utterly useless in every way? This is another issue to which I shall return shortly. In the meantime, let us turn to the second question.

  Not saying what is true and saying what is false are two very different things, but they can nevertheless produce the same effect, for this effect is certainly the same whenever it is nil. Whenever the truth is a matter of indifference, so is the opposite error, whence it follows that in such circumstances, a person who deceives by telling the opposite of the truth is no more reprehensible than a person who deceives by not telling the truth, for, as far as useless truths are concerned, error is no worse than ignorance. Whether I believe the sand at the bottom of the sea is white or red is of no more importance to me than not knowing what colour it is. How could one possibly be unjust when one harms nobody, since injustice consists only in the wrong done to others?

  But these precipitate answers to my questions cannot give me any sure guidance for practical purposes without their first being sufficiently explained in order to allow them to be applied correctly in all possible cases. For if the duty to tell the truth is founded solely on its usefulness, how can I set myself up as a judge of that usefulness? Very often what does good to one person does harm to another, and private interest is almost always in conflict with public interest. How is one to act in such circumstances? Does what is of use to the absent person have to be sacrificed to that of the person to whom one is speaking? Should the truth that benefits one person but harms another be concealed or declared? Should everything that one has to say be measured solely on the scales of the public good or on those of distributive justice, and can I be sure of knowing all the aspects of the matter well enough to be able to share that knowledge I have purely according to the rules of equity? Moreover, in examining what is owed to others, have I examined sufficiently what one owes to oneself and what one owes to truth itself? If I do no wrong to someone by deceiving them, does it follow that I am doing no wrong to myself, and is it enough never to be unjust in order always to be innocent?

  What a lot of thorny issues which it would be easy to get out of by saying to oneself: let us always be truthful, whatever happens. Justice itself lies in the truth of things; lying is alwa
ys evil, and error is always deceit when one gives what is not true as the rule for what one should do or believe. And whatever effect telling the truth may have, one is always innocent in doing so, because one has added to it nothing of one’s own.

  But that is to answer the question without actually resolving it. We were not trying to decide whether or not it would be good always to tell the truth, but whether or not one was always equally obliged to do so, and, on the basis of the definition that I was examining, supposing the answer to be no, how to distinguish between those cases where the truth is absolutely necessary and those where one can conceal the truth without injustice and disguise it without lying: for I have found that such cases actually existed. So what we are seeking is a reliable rule for knowing and determining which these cases are.

  But where are this rule and the proof of its infallibility to be found . . . ? In all difficult moral questions like this, I have always found it best to be directed by my conscience in answering them, rather than by the insight that comes from my reason. My moral instinct has never deceived me: it has so far remained pure enough in my heart for me to put my trust in it, and if on occasion it falls silent in my actions, in the face of my passions, it reasserts itself over them in my recollections. It is then that I judge myself as severely perhaps as I shall be judged by the supreme judge once this life is over.

  To judge men’s words by the effects that they have is often to misjudge them. Apart from the fact that these effects are not always discernible or easily recognized, they are also as infinitely varied as the circumstances in which the words are spoken. But it is solely the intention of the person who speaks them that gives them their true value and determines their degree of malice or goodness. Untruthful talk is only lying when there is an intention to deceive, and the very intention to deceive, far from always being linked to the intention to do harm, sometimes has quite the opposite purpose. But to make a lie innocent, it is not enough for there to be no deliberate intention to do harm; rather, it must be certain that the error into which one is throwing those to whom one is speaking cannot harm them or anyone else in any way whatsoever. It is rare and difficult to have this kind of certainty; it is therefore difficult and rare for a lie to be perfectly innocent. To lie for one’s own advantage is imposture, to lie for the advantage of others is fraud, and to lie in order to do harm is calumny; this is the worst kind of lie. To lie without benefit or harm to oneself or to others is not to lie: it is not a lie, but a fiction.

  Fictions which have a moral aim are called apologues or fables, and since their aim is or should be simply to disguise useful truths in affecting and pleasing forms, in such cases there is hardly any attempt to conceal the factual lie, which is simply the disguise of truth, and the person who tells a fable simply as a fable is in no way lying.

  There are other fictions which are entirely pointless, such as the majority of tales and novels, which, containing no real instruction, are designed merely to amuse. Stripped of all moral usefulness, the true value of these can only be judged in terms of the intention of the person who invents them, and when he tells them in earnest, as if they were really true, it is hard to disagree that they are really lies. However, who has ever worried terribly about such lies, and who has ever seriously reproached anyone for telling them? If there is, for example, some moral purpose in The Temple of Cnidus,* it is obscured and undermined by the book’s sensual details and lascivious images. How did the author cover all that with a veneer of decency? He claimed that his work was the translation of a Greek manuscript, and he told the story of the discovery of this manuscript in just such a way as to persuade his readers of the truth of his account. If that is not positively a lie, then I wish someone would tell me what lying is. However, has anyone ever taken it upon himself to treat the author’s lie as a crime and to treat him as an impostor because of it?

  It is futile to argue that it was merely a joke, that the author, even while making the claim, did not wish to persuade anyone, that in fact he persuaded nobody, and that the public did not doubt for a moment that he was actually the author of the supposedly Greek work that he claimed to have translated. In response I would say that such a pointless joke would have been nothing but a foolish piece of childishness, that a liar is no less a liar when he persuades nobody, and that we must distinguish between the educated public and the hordes of simple and credulous readers who were actually taken in by the story of the manuscript as told by a serious author, apparently in good faith, and who fearlessly drank from an ancient-looking goblet the poison of which they would have at least been wary if it had been presented to them in a modern vessel.

  Whether or not these distinctions are to be found in books, they are certainly to be found in the heart of any man who is honest with himself and who does not want to permit himself anything which his conscience could reproach him for. For saying something untrue for one’s own advantage is no less of a lie than saying it to harm someone else, even though the lie is less criminal. To give an advantage to someone who should not have it is to undermine order and justice; falsely to attribute to oneself or to someone else an act which may result in praise or blame, or which may be declared innocent or guilty, is to commit an injustice; so, anything which, by dint of running counter to the truth, offends against justice in any way is a lie. That is where I draw the line. But anything which, although running counter to the truth, does not concern justice in any way is but a fiction, and I admit that anyone who reproaches himself for a pure fiction as if it were a lie, has a more delicate conscience than I have.

  The lies known as white lies are real lies because deceiving someone to the advantage either of others or of oneself is no less unjust than deceiving someone to harm them. Anyone who praises or blames untruthfully is lying if the person in question is a real person. If the person in question is imaginary, he can say whatever he likes about them without lying, unless he makes judgements concerning the morality of the facts which he invents and makes false judgements, for then, even if he is not lying about facts, he is lying against moral truth, which is a hundred times more respectable than factual truth.

  I have seen people who are known in society to be truthful. Their truthfulness expends itself in futile conversations on citing faithfully places, dates, and names, denying any fiction, stating the bare facts, and exaggerating nothing. As long as their own interests are not at stake, they are scrupulously truthful in the account that they give. But when it comes to dealing with some matter that concerns them or narrating some fact that is close to them, they use all their verbal skills to present things in the most favourable light possible, and if a lie is useful to them and even if they refrain from telling it themselves, they contrive to promote it and ensure that it is believed, without it being possible to attribute it directly to them. Such is the will of prudence: farewell, truthfulness.

  The man whom I call truthful does the exact opposite. In perfectly trivial matters, the truth which the other man respects so much concerns him very little, and he will have few qualms in amusing a gathering with invented facts which give rise to no unfair judgements either for or against anybody living or dead. But any words which produce for somebody advantage or harm, respect or scorn, praise or blame, in spite of justice and truth, are a lie which will never come near his heart, his lips, or his pen. He is resolutely truthful, even when it is not in his own interest to be so, although he rarely makes a point of being so in idle conversation. He is truthful in that he does not seek to deceive anyone, he is as faithful to the truth which accuses him as he is to that which does him credit, and he never deceives for his own advantage or to harm his enemy. The difference, then, between my truthful man and the other is that the man of the world is rigorously faithful to any truth which does not cost him anything, but no more than that, whereas my man never serves truth so faithfully as when he has to lay down his life for its sake.

  But, it might be objected, how is it possible to reconcile this leniency with the ardent love of
truth which I praise in him? So is this love false because it permits of so much impurity? No, it is pure and true: but it is simply a product of the love of justice and never seeks to be false, even if it is often fantastical. Justice and truth are in his mind two synonyms which he uses interchangeably. The holy truth which his heart adores does not consist of trivial facts and useless names, but of faithfully giving to everyone what is owed to him in things which really pertain to him, in accusations of good or ill, in the awarding of honour or blame, praise or censure. He is not false at the expense of others, because his impartiality prevents him from being so and because he does not want to harm anyone unjustly, nor is he to his own advantage, because his conscience prevents him from being so and because he could not take what does not belong to him. He is above all jealous of his own self-respect; this is the possession that he can least do without, and he would feel a real loss, were he to acquire the respect of others at the expense of his own. Therefore he will have no qualms about sometimes telling lies about trivial matters and he will not believe himself to be lying, but he will never lie to the disadvantage or advantage of others or of himself. In all matters concerning historical truth, in everything concerning the behaviour of men, justice, sociability, or useful knowledge, he will guard himself and others against error as long as it is in his power to do so. In all other matters, a lie is not a lie, according to him. If The Temple of Cnidus is a useful work, the story of the Greek manuscript is but a very innocent fiction; it is a reprehensible lie, if the work is dangerous.