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Of Pongos and Men: Orangs-Outang in Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Francis Moron III
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Rousseau's concept of human perfectibility and his suggestion that a group of anthropomorphic animals might actually be human beings in a primitive state of nature have led an increasing number of studies to cite his Discourse on Inequality for offering an early version of Darwinian evolution. I argue that a different picture emerges once we examine Rousseau's discussion against the backdrop of eighteenth-century debates on the viability of the chain of being and the possibility of multiple human species. The significance of his speculation has less to do with his special insights on human descent than with the political point to be made were it true. Rousseau uses orangs-outang like the pongo to construct a viable model for criticizing his contemporary Europe and to defend his claim that the kind of political inequalities associated with late European society do not issue from God or nature but are accidental events in the life of the species.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 57 , Issue 4 , Fall 1995 , pp. 641 - 664
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1995

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References

I would like to thank Roger D. Masters, Phillip R. Sloan, and my anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

1. On the importance of this note, see Masters, Roger D., The Political Philosophy of Rousseau (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968)Google Scholar; and Meier, Heinrich, “The Discourse on the Origin and the Foundations of Inequality Among Men: On the Intention of Rousseau's Most Philosophical Work,” Interpretation 16 (1988–1989): 218.Google Scholar

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3. Evolutionist readings of the Discourse include Arnhart, Larry, Political Questions (New York: MacMillan, 1986), pp. 264–73Google Scholar; Cranston, Maurice, “Introduction,” in Jean-Jacques Rousseau: A Discourse on Inequality, ed. Cranston, Maurice (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984), pp. 28–30Google Scholar; Crocker, Lester, “Diderot and Eighteenth-Century French Transformism,” in Forerunners of Darwin: 1745–1859, ed. Glass, Bentley, Temkin, Oswei, and Straus, William L. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1959), pp. 133–34)Google Scholar; Lovejoy, A. O., “The Supposed Primitivism of Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality,” Modern Philology 21 (1923): 165–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Masters, Roger D., The Structure of Rousseau's Political Thought, in Hobbes and Rousseau, ed. Cranston, Maurice and Peters, Richard S. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972), pp. 403–404Google Scholar; Masters, , “Introduction,” in Jean-Jacques Rousseau: On Social Contract, ed. Masters, Roger D. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1978), p. 6Google Scholar; Masters, , “Jean-Jacques is Alive and Well: Rousseau and Contemporary Sociobiology, Daedalus 107 (1978): 93–105Google Scholar; Pomeau, Rene, “Voyage et lumières dans la litèrature Française du XVIIe siécle,” Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 57 (1967): 1269–89Google Scholar; Wokler, Robert, “Perfectible Apes in Decadent Cultures: Rousseau's Anthropology Revisited,” Daedalus 103 (1978): 107–134Google Scholar; and Wokler, Robert, “The Ape Debates in Enlightenment Anthropology,” Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 192 (1980): 1164–75.Google Scholar On the contributions to anthropology, see Frayling, Christopher and Wokler, Robert, “From the Orang-utan to the Vampire: Towards an Anthropology of Rousseau,” in Rousseau After 200 Years, ed. Leigh, R. A. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 109–124Google Scholar; Horowitz, Asher, Rousseau, Nature and History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987)Google Scholar; and Horowitz, , “Laws and Customs Thrust Us Back to Infancy: Rousseau's Historical Anthropology,” Review of Politics 52 (1990): 215–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For sociobiology, see Masters, “Jean-Jacques is Alive and Well"; and for primatology, see Arnhart, , Political Questions, pp. 265–68Google Scholar; Frayling and Wokler, “From the Orang-utan to the Vampire"; and Wokler, “The Ape Debates.”

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10. Purchas, Samuel, Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas His Pilgrimes (1625), 20 vols. (New York, 1965), 5: 398.Google Scholar Strictly speaking, the pongo is first described in Purchas, Purchas, his Pilgrimage (1613), but it is the later and more expansive account which was the source in the anthologies discussed below.

11. Antoine-francois, , l'abbé PréVost, Histoire générate des voyages, 20 vols. (Paris, 1746–1789)Google Scholar; hereafter HGV.

12. Prevost, , HGV, 4: 87–88Google Scholar; also Rousseau, , DOI, p. 209Google Scholar; and SD, p. 81.

13. Prévost, , HGV, IV, 88Google Scholar; also Rousseau, , DOI, p. 209Google Scholar; and SD, p. 81. Blanckaert also views pongo burial practices as raising interesting questions relative to pongo metaphysical beliefs; see Blanckaert, , “Premier des singes,” p. 115.Google Scholar

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17. Prévost, , HGV, 4: 88Google Scholar; also Rousseau, , DOI, p. 210Google Scholar; and SD, p. 81.

18. The enjocko is an exception because it was mentioned but not described in Hakluytus Posthumus. Purchas relates that Battel forgot to discuss it, consequently no account of the animal appears in HGV.

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21. SD, p. 81. Rousseau also mentions this point in a letter to David Hume. See Rousseau, , “Rousseau à David Hume, 29 mars 1766,” Correspondance complète de Jean Jacques Rousseau, ed. Leigh, R. A. et al. , 50 vols to date (Geneva: Voltaire Institute, 1965-), 29: 66.Google Scholar Also see Cook, Mercer, “Jean Jacques Rousseau and the Negro,” The Journal of Negro History 21 (1936): 294–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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23. In his editorial notes to the Discourse, Masters notes that Green was Provost's source for the discussion of the pongo but does not discuss the differences between the various descriptions of the animal; see SD, p. 186.

24. Green, John, A New General Collection of Voyages and Travels, 4 vols. (London, 1745–1747), 3: 312Google Scholar; hereafter NGCVT. This compilation, sometimes cited with T. Astley as the author, became one of the more important anthologies of travel writing in the eighteenth century, see Curtin, Philip D., The Image of Africa (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964), p. 12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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31. The classic study of the idea is Lovejoy, A. O., The Great Chain of Being (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936), pp. 183–287.Google Scholar Also see Greene, John, The Death of Adam (Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, 1959), pp. 12–152Google Scholar; Willey, Basil, The Eighteenth Century Background: Studies on the Idea of Nature in the Thought of the Period (New York: Columbia University Press, 1940)Google Scholar; Hampson, Norman, A Cultural History of the Enlightenment (New York: Random House, 1968), pp. 63–95Google Scholar; and Jordan, Winthrop D., White Over Black (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1968), pp. 219–39; 482–511.Google Scholar This is not to say that all naturalists or natural philosophers adopted this reading of nature. But just as post-Darwinian theory manages to accommodate substantial debate and disagreements (over such issues as punctuated equilibria, selfish genes, and genetic drift) within a fundamental acceptance of a more general theory, so too could the chain of being. So while we see the occasional outright rejection of the theory, more often than not we see qualifications, modifications, and amendments. Rousseau for instance, rejected a strict reading of the principle of continuity and strongly criticized some of the normative applications of the theory, but otherwise defended it. Developing a full treatment of Rousseau's understanding of and appreciation for the chain of being is beyond the scope of the present article, but for his direct criticism of the theory see Rousseau, , “Lettre á François-Joseph de Conzie, comte des Charmettes, le 17 Janvier 1742,” in Correspondance complète, 1:132–39.Google Scholar For his critique of its normativ applications, see Rousseau, , “Letter from J.J. Rousseau to Mr. de Voltaire, 18 August 1756,” in CW, 3:108–121Google Scholar; and Rousseau, , “Letter from J.J. Rousseau to Mr. Philopolis,” in CW, 3:127–32.Google Scholar For his limited defense of the theory, see Rousseau, “Letter to Voltaire, 18 August 1756.”

32. Gould, Stephen Jay, The Flamingo's Smile (New York: Norton, 1985), pp. 263–80Google Scholar; Broberg, Gunar, “Homo sapiens: Linneaus's Classification of Man,” in Linneaus: The Man and His Work, ed. Frängsmyr, Tore (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), p. 163Google Scholar; and Blanckaert, , “Premier des singes,” p. 113.Google Scholar

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37. Gourevitch, , “Editor's Notes,” p. 354.Google Scholar

38. Rousseau, , Essay on the Origin of Languages, in FSD, pp. 268–69.Google Scholar

39. In a note to chapter nine of the Essay on the Origin of Languages he apparently refers to this episode and expresses his incredulity that the travelers want us to believe their claim that pongos cannot tend a fire for themselves but can perform other mental feats; see FSD, p. 268.

40. Rousseau, , SD, p. 80.Google Scholar Buffon and de Maillet mention several accounts of human populations with tails; see Buffon, , “Varieties of the Human Species,” p. 87Google Scholar; and De Maillet, , Telliamed, pp. 202–206.Google Scholar

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43. Gourevitch nonetheless suggests that Rousseau may have been sympathetic to polygenesis, see “Rousseau's Pure State of Nature,” p. 45.

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49. Lovejoy, “Buffon and the Problem of Species.”

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58. Gourevitch, , “Rousseau's Pure State of Nature,” pp. 35–36.Google Scholar

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