La Civil religion as counter-poison

Abstract

This article aims to study the relationship established by Rousseau between Civil Religion, “les sentiments de sociabilité”, and the premise of “second nature”, taking into account the point of view of eighteenth-century medical knowledge. We explore the problem of identifying and determining which habits are convenient for members of the civil order, examining it, on the one hand, in connection to the thesis of the human species improvement defended by physicians of the eighteenth-century social hygiene tradition, and on the other hand, in relation to Rousseau’s reflections on self-love in his writings on morals and politics. The appendix clarifies the model of theatre that Rousseau employs to reflect on human faculties.