Earlier this month, I wrote up a seven-part survey of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, which is also known as “The Second Discourse”; see links below for a complete compilation of my previous Rousseau posts. Today, however, I want to conclude my survey with a letter dated 30 August 1755, a short missive that is addressed to Rousseau himself. This piece of correspondence, which is available here (also here), was composed by none other than Voltaire — perhaps the greatest, and no doubt the most prolific (see here, for example), man of letters produced by the Enlightenment — and contains what has to be one of the greatest literary put downs of all time!

Among other things, Voltaire not only begins his 1755 letter by acknowledging that he has received a copy of Rousseau’s “new book against the human race”; he also sums up the Second Discourse thus: “The horrors of that human society–from which in our feebleness and ignorance we expect so many consolations–have never been painted in more striking colors: no one has ever been so witty as you are in trying to turn us into brutes: to read your book makes one long to go about all fours.” Touché! (Shout out to my colleague and friend Janet Bufton for bringing this remarkable letter to my attention.)

1. Three questions for Jean-Jacques Rousseau (18 Jan.)
2. Rousseau’s axioms (19 Jan.)
3. Rousseau: the first post-modernist? (19 Jan.)
4. Rousseau’s rebuttal (22 Jan.)
5. Rousseau through the eyes of Adam Smith (23 Jan.)
6. Rousseau through the eyes of Adam Smith redux (23 Jan.)
7. The banality of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (24 Jan.)

Pictured below: A pair of painted plaster figures depicting the philosophers Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and Voltaire (1694-1778); more details are available here.