Emile, or On Education

that can be done by dint of care is to approach the goal more or less, but one must have good fortune to reach it. What is this goal? It is that of nature itself; this has just been proven. Since the cooperation of the three educations is necessary for their perfection, it is toward the one upon which we can do nothing that we must direct the other two. But perhaps this word nature has too vague a meaning; one must try here to fix it.

Nature, we are told, is nothing but habit (*). What does that mean? Are there not habits that one contracts only by force and that never stifle nature? Such is, for example, the habit of plants whose vertical direction is hindered. The plant set at liberty keeps the inclination it was forced to take, but the sap has not changed its primitive direction for all that, and if the plant continues to grow, its extension becomes vertical again. It is the same with the inclinations of men. As long as one remains in the same state, one can keep those that result from habit and that are least natural to us; but as soon as the situation changes, habit ceases and the natural state returns. Education is certainly only a habit. Now, are there not people who forget and lose their education? Others who keep it? From where does this difference come? If one must limit the name of nature to habits consistent with nature, one can spare oneself this gibberish.

(*) Mr. Formey assures us that one does not say exactly that. It seems to me, however, very precisely stated in this line to which I proposed to respond:

"Nature, believe me, is nothing but habit."
Mr. Formey, who does not wish to inflate the pride of his peers, modestly gives us the measure of his own brain as that of the human intellect.