Gail Alexandra Cook

The botanical writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, consisting of a large number of letters, many of them didactic, some fragmentary texts and an unfinished dictionary, one of the first of its kind in the vernacular, are underappreciated by scholars. The significance of these once-popular works for Rousseau's political thought and for humanity's relation to nature is therefore now little known. ;Rousseau's botanical writings amplify his view of nature--nature unaltered by human hands or the nexus of human interests--as embodying truth and freedom in contrast with the lies and subservience which characterize civil society. When human material interests become associated with the study of nature, nature loses its independence and intrinsic worth, becoming instead nothing more than "the instrument of our passions." For Rousseau, then, most modern justifications for environmental preservation would amount to nothing more than expressions of amour propre. ;These justifications ignore the most important reason for the preservation of nature: the qualities that make the study of an independent nature a nourishment for the soul. The contemplation of nature for itself--in its freedom and orderliness, as well as its immense variety--is a good. Nature study "detaches us from ourselves" and "raises us to Author"; it is therefore "useful to wisdom and virtue." The "healthy spirit" makes a detailed, even scientific, study of nature his or her special concern. In order for botany to serve as moral instruction, it is necessary to study plants growing freely in their native habitats, and to avoid "monsters" produced by artificial means. Only untrammeled nature--not nature as use-value--provides a model of freedom and source of truth. ;This botanical education not only supplies the material correlate to Rousseau's moral teaching, but also provides the only real basis for an ecologically sound regime. In the best regime, therefore, "healthy spirits" would value nature as a good in and of itself; coercive environmental protection laws would not be as crucial as the mores, customs and habits "engraved$\...$in the hearts of the citizens." In other regimes, however, solitary promeneurs can have philosophically worthwhile encounters with nature