Rousseau’s essay, which makes the case that the sciences and arts have helped to corrupt morals and which can be read as a secular retelling of the Genesis story, won the competition’s gold medal prize. “The moment I read these words I saw another universe and I became another man,” he claimed. Walking to the Château of Vincennes to visit his friend Denis Diderot, who was imprisoned there on the charge of subversion, Rousseau paused to glance at a newspaper he had brought with him to “moderate my pace.” The newspaper contained an advertisement for an essay competition sponsored by the Academy of Dijon on the question of whether “the progress of the sciences and the arts contributed to the corruption or the purification of morals.” Rousseau was seized by inspiration he suddenly glimpsed not only the essay he would write but also the entire philosophical system he would later construct. It involves a road-to-Damascus-style epiphany. In his Confessions, Jean-Jacques Rousseau tells the story of how he became famous, which is also the story of how he became a philosopher.
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