Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T01:07:06.850Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Francis Moron III
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

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

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

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

2. Rousseau, Jean-jacques, “Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men,” in The Collected Writings of Rousseau, ed. Masters, Roger D. and Kelly, Christopher and trans. Judith R. Bush, Roger D. Masters, and Christopher Kelly, 5 vols. to date (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1991-), p. 81Google Scholar; hereafter SD or CW followed by the page numbers.I follow the Roman numeral designation for Rousseau's notes adopted in the Pléiade edition of his complete works. See Rousseau, Jean-jacques, “Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de I inégalite (1755),” in J.-J. Rousseau: Oeuvres complètes, ed. Gagnebin, Bernard and Raymond, Marcel, 4 vols. to date (Paris, 1959-), 3: 109–223Google Scholar; hereafter DOI. This is note *8 in SD.

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.”

4. Gourevitch, Victor, “Rousseau's Pure State of Nature,” Interpretation 16 (1988): 23–60.Google Scholar

5. Moran, Francis III, “Between Primates and Primitives: Natural Man as the Missing Link in Rousseau'*s Second Discourse,” Journal of the History of Ideas 54 (1993): 37–58.Google Scholar

6. One of the earliest versions of this type of reading can be seen in Lovejoy, , “Primitivism,” p. 168.Google Scholar For translations which use orangutan see SD, pp. 81–83; and “Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality,” in Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Basic Political Writings, ed. Cress, Donald A. (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Co., 1987), p. 96.Google Scholar

7. Blanckaert, Claude, “Premier des singes, dernier des hommes?” Alliage 7–8 (1991): 113–28.Google Scholar

8. Gourevitch, , “Rousseau's Pure State of Nature,” pp. 43–45Google Scholar; also see Gourevitch, , “Editor's Note's,” in Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The First and Secon Discourses and Essay on the Origin of Languages, ed. Gourevitch, Victor (New York: Haper and Row, 1986), pp. 354–55Google Scholar; hereafter FSD.

9. Blanckaert, , “Premier des singes,” p. 115.Google Scholar

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

14. Prévost, , HGV, 4: 614; and 2: 229.Google Scholar

15. Leclerc, Georges Louis, De Buffon, Comte, “Varieties of the Human Species (1753),” in Natural History: General and Particular, ed. and trans. Smellie, William, 8 vols. (London, 1781), 3: 95 and 91Google Scholar; hereafter NH followed by the volume and page numbers.

16. Prévost, , HGV, 4: 88Google Scholar; also Rousseau, , DOI, p. 209Google Scholar; and SD, p. 81.

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.

19. Prévost, , HGV, 4: 240–41.Google Scholar

20. Ibid., 3: 293–94.

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

22. I survey many of these reports in my JHI article. Buffon includes illustrations of several bipedal primates, including a jocko standing with a walking stick, and similar illustrations can be found in Tyson, Edward, Orang Outang, sive Homo Sylvestris: or The Anatomy of a Pygmie (1699), ed. Montagu, Ashley (London: Dawson, 1966)Google Scholar; and Bewick, Thomas, A General History of Quadrupeds, 3rd ed. (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1792).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Some of these are reproduced in my JHI article, and accessible reproductions can also be found in Reynolds, Vernon, The Apes (New York: Dutton, 1967).Google Scholar

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

25. Purchas, , Hakluytus Posthumus, 5: 398Google Scholar; Green, , NGCVT, 3: 312.Google Scholar

26. Purchas, , Hakluytus Posthumus, 5: 398.Google Scholar

27. “Pongos [1755],” in Encydopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonne des sciences, des arts et de métiers (1751–1780), ed. Diderot, Denis (Stuttgart: Bad Cannstatt, 1966–1967), 13:25.Google Scholar

28. Buffon, , “Les Orang-outangs, ou le Pongo et le Jocko [1766],” Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière, 36 vols. (Paris, 1749–1788), 14:49.Google Scholar Huxley also not Buffon's changes but without making a connection to the needs of the chain of being; see Huxley, T. H., Man's Place in Nature (1863), ed. Montagu, Ashley (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1959), p. 24.Google Scholar

29. Buffon, , “Orang Outangs, or the Pongo and the Jocko,” NH, 8: 83Google Scholar, hereafter “Orang Outangs”; Burnet, James [Lord Monboddo], Of the Origin and Progress of Language, 6 vols. (Edinburgh, 1773), 1: 274Google Scholar; and Goldsmith, Oliver, An History of the Earth and Animated Nature, 8 vols. (London, 1774), 4:202.Google Scholar Buffon's error lives on. Blanckaert, in his discussion of the pongo, does not cite Purchas directly but rather Huxley's quotation of Buffon's (mis)translation, and so describes Battel as claiming that the pongo has more intelligence than other animals; see Blanckaert, , “Premier des singes,” p. 115.Google Scholar

30. Prévost, , HGV, 4:87Google Scholar; Rousseau, , DOI, p. 209Google Scholar and SD, p. 81; and see Green, , NGCVT, 3:312.Google Scholar

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

33. Rousseau, , “Lettre á de Conzie,” p. 133Google Scholar; Buffon, , “Of the Nature of Man,” NH, 2: 366Google Scholar; Voltaire, , “Poem on the Lisbon Earthquake (1756),” in The Portable Voltaire, ed. Redman, Ben Ray (New York: Viking, 1977), p. 562Google Scholar; and Voltaire, , “The Great Chain of Being (1764),” in Philosophical Dictionary, ed. and trans. Besterman, Theodore (New York: Penguin, 1972), pp. 107–109.Google Scholar

34. The eighteenth-century literature discussing the similarities of Africans and other allegedly primitive peoples with apes is quite rich. For overviews see Frantz, R. W., “Swift's Yahoos and the Voyagers,” Modern Philology 29 (1931): 49–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gould, Stephen Jay, Flamingo's Smile, pp. 281–90Google Scholar; Jordan, , White Over Black; Gates, Henry Louis Jr., Figures in Black (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987)Google Scholar; and Moran, “Primates and Primitives.”

35. See for example, Locke, John, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), ed. Fraser, Alexander Campbell, 2 vols. (New York: Dover, 1959), book 3, chap. 6, para. 12–23Google Scholar, hereafter Essay. For a provocative discussion of the way in which our understanding of nonhuman primates in Darwinian and postDarwinian natural history is shaped by the particular social circumstances of both the human observer of these animals and her audience, see Haraway, Donna, Primate Visions (New York: Routledge, 1989).Google Scholar

36. De Maillet, , Telliamed (1748), trans. Carozzi, Albert O. (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1968), p. 201.Google Scholar

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

41. For versions of the polygenist position, see Voltaire, , “Traite de metaphysique (1734),” in Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire, 52 vols. (Paris, 1883–1885) 22:191–92Google Scholar; Linneaus, Caroli, Systema Naturae, 10th ed., 2 vols. (Holmiae, 1758), 1: 20–24Google Scholar; and Hume, David, “Of National Characters,” cited in Gould, Stephen Jay, The Mismeasure of Man (New York: Norton, 1981), pp. 191–92Google Scholar. For discussions of Linneaus, see Broberg, , “Homo sapiens,” and Douthwaite, Julia, “Rewriting the Savage: The Extraordinary Fictions of the Wild Girl of Champagne,” Eighteenth Century Studies 28 (1994–1995): 163–92Google Scholar. For a recent discussion of Hume's changing attitudes toward polygeny see Immerwahr, John, “Hume's Revised Racism,” in Journal of the History of Ideas 53 (1992): 481–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42. Curtin, , Image of Africa, pp. 41–42.Google Scholar

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

44. For discussions of the relationship between Rousseau and Buffon, see Morel, Jean, “Recherches sur les sources du Discours de I' inégalite,” Annales de la Société Jean-Jacques Rousseau 5 (1909): 119–98Google Scholar; Fellows, Otis, “Buffon and Rousseau: Aspects of a Relationship,” Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 75 (1960): 184–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Starobinski, Jean, “Rousseau and Buffon,” in Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Transparency and Obstruction, trans. Goldhammer, Arthur (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), pp. 323–32Google Scholar; and Horowitz, , Rousseau, Nature, and History, pp. 58–62.Google Scholar

45. Buffon, , “Analogies Between Animals and Vegetables (1749),” NH, 2:10.Google Scholar

46. Lovejoy, , “Buffon and the Problem of Species,” in Forerunners of Darwin, pp. 84–113.Google Scholar

47. Sloan, Phillip R., “The Gaze of Natural History,” in Inventing Human Science, ed. Porter, R., Fox, C., Wokler, R. (Berkeley: University of California, 1995), p. 133.Google Scholar

48. Buffon, , “Varieties of the Human Species (1753),” NH, 3:203–207Google Scholar; and “The Ass (1753),” NH, 3: 407–409.Google Scholar For more on Buffon's theory of racial degeneracy see Sloan, , “The Idea of Racial Degeneracy in Buffon's Histoire naturelle,” Studies in Eighteenth Century Culture, 3 (1973): 293–321.Google Scholar

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

50. Buffon, , “The Ass,” pp. 398–411.Google Scholar

51. Buffon, , “Varieties of the Human Species,” pp. 407–409Google Scholar; Buffon, , “Of the Degeneration of Animals,” NH, 7: 392–98Google Scholar

52. Rousseau, , SD, p. 83.Google Scholar

53. In addition to the reports Rousseau included in Note X, see for example Herbert, Thomas, Some Yeares Travels into Divers Parts of Asia and Afrique, 2nd ed. (London, 1638), p. 17Google Scholar; Locke, Essay, book 3, chap. 6, para. 23; Tyson, , OrangOutang, pp. 250–51Google Scholar; Leguat, Francois, The Voyage of Frangois Leguat (1708), 2 vols (London, 1891), 2: 235Google Scholar; Green, , NGCVT, 2: 718Google Scholar; Goldsmith, , HEAN, 4: 210Google Scholar; and Jefferson, Thomas, “Notes on the State of Virginia (1781–1785),” in The Complete Jefferson, ed. Padover, Saul K. (New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1943), p. 662.Google Scholar Also see Jordan, , White Over Black, pp. 32–40.Google Scholar

54. Rousseau, , SD, p. 21.Google Scholar For studies which see this as an anticipation of the principle of natural selection, see Havens, George, Voltaire's Marginalia on the Pages of Rousseau (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University, 1933), p. 5Google Scholar; Plattner, Marc, Rousseau's State of Nature (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press), pp. 36–37Google Scholar; Cranston, , “Introduction,” p. 30Google Scholar; Masters, , “Jean-Jacques Is Alive and Well,” p. 97Google Scholar; Masters, , “Introduction,” p. 6Google Scholar; Horowitz, , Rousseau, Nature and History, p. 61Google Scholar; and Degler, Carl, In Search of Human Nature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 233.Google Scholar

55. Rousseau, , “Final Reply,” CW 2: 119.Google Scholar

56. Buffon understood the struggle for existence as a way for nature to maintain an equilibrium between predator and prey species. In his Essay on the Origin of Language, however, Rousseau questions the validity of even this limited use of the idea. See Buffon, , “The Natural History of the Hare,” NH, 4: 139Google Scholar; and “A Dissertation on Carnivorous Animals,” NH, 4: 164–65Google Scholar; and Rousseau, , FSD, p. 270.Google Scholar

57. Rousseau, , SD, p. 42.Google Scholar

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

59. This view is most closely associated with preformationist theories of embryology and the origin of species, which as Sloan notes, was the most widely held theory of generation in mid-century. Rousseau's reference to the “first Embryo of the species” in the first paragraph of part one may be an allusion to this theory. Buffon offered an alternative to preformationism, but accepted the idea that the origin of species—apart from their reproduction and degeneration— was a product of divine creation. See Rousseau, , SD, p. 20Google Scholar; Buffon, , “Second View of Nature (1764),” in NH, 7:95Google Scholar; Sloan, “The Gaze of Natural History,” p. 133Google Scholar; and Roger, Jacques, Les sciences des la vie dans la pensée française du XVIIe siècle (Paris: Armand Colin, 1963).Google Scholar

60. See Rousseau, , “Letter to Voltaire, 18 August 1756,” pp. 114–16Google Scholar; and Scott, John, “The Theodicy of the Second Discourse: The Pure State of Nature and Rousseau's Political Thought,” American Political Science Review 86 (1992): 696–711.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

61. Rousseau, , “Letter to Philopolis”, p. 129Google Scholar

62. See Rousseau, , “Discourse on the Sciences and Arts (1751),” CW, 2:1–22Google Scholar; Rousseau, , “Observations by Jean-Jacques Rousseau of Geneva,” CW, 2: 37–54Google Scholar; Rousseau, , “Final Reply,” pp. 110–19Google Scholar; and Rousseau, , “Preface to Narcissus: Or the Lover of Himself,” CW, 2:186–98.Google Scholar

63. Bonnet, Charles,“ Letter from Mr. Philopolis on the Subject of the Discourse of Mr. J.-J. Rousseau of Geneva on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men,” in Rousseau, , CW, 3:124.Google Scholar

64. Rousseau, , “Letter to Philopolis,” p. 130.Google Scholar