39
stick placed in the water. It appears crooked, even when it is relatively straight. The appearance
of crookedness, however, misleads those unwilling to employ their reason to discover the truth,
and consequently the illusion succeeds. The part of the soul described here is that which is
“deprived of prudence and reason and incapable of knowing by itself anything of prudence and
truth” and is “low by its nature” (Imitation, 345 [V: 1205]).
We escape error and illusion only by employing the reasoning portion of the
soul—the “most noble of our faculties” (Imitation, 345 [V: 1205]). Reason guides us to look
further and deeper to see what the truth is, and prevents us from falling to illusion. Of course, the
exercise of reason in the assistance of judgment is not easy and immediately available to all. On
the contrary, it involves work and refinement. Developing this theme in the Emile, Rousseau
cautions us in Platonic language, “If the first glimmers of judgment dazzle [éblouissent] us and at
first make a blur of objects in our sight, let us wait for our weak eyes to open up again and steady
themselves, and soon we shall see these same objects again in the light of reason” (Emile, 290
[IV: 600]). The resemblance here to the Cave is strong. Plato refers to the “dazzle and glitter of
the light” that must be overcome in order to see “more truly” (Republic, 515cd). At any rate, this
noble faculty of reason fights against the lower ones in keeping the individual from falling into
error.
The virtue characterizing the triumph of reason over pleasure-seeking is
moderation. We are frequently, if not always, engaged in a battle within ourselves between the
parts of the soul.
31
Passion pulls in one direction, reason another. The struggle for moderation is
31 Rousseau adds the following important footnote: “This word part [of the soul] here must not
be taken in the precise sense, as if Plato supposed the soul to be really divisible or composed.
The division he assumes and which makes him use the word part regards only the various kinds
of operations by which the soul is modified, and which are otherwise called faculties” (Imitation,
345 [V: 1206]). If Rousseau is sincere here (and there is absolute no reason to believe he is not),
this offers an objection to Arthur Melzer’s hypothesis that Rousseau was consciously attacking
Plato in his works, by attributing multiple divisions to Plato’s theory of the soul and then refuting
it (Melzer 1990, 20). This footnote suggests that Rousseau thought that he and Plato were very
much on the same page with regard to the soul. Whether or not Rousseau is correct in
Convention