Paul-Claude Moultou

This chapter focuses on Jean-Jacques Rousseau's letter to Paul-Claude Moultou on February 14, 1769. In this letter, Rousseau declares that he has observed in a few of Moultou's letters that “the torrent of fashion” is overtaking Moultou and that he is beginning to vacillate in sentiments that Rousseau believed to be unshakable in him. Rousseau reiterates that “faith is not indispensable, that sincere incredulity is not a crime, and that one will be judged on what one will have done and not on what one will have believed.” However, he advises Moultou to be fully in good faith with himself. According to Rousseau, not having believed and not having wanted to believe are very different things. Moreover, he believes that “in rejecting the first cause and forming everything from matter and motion, one takes away all morality from human life.”