Q0338
“Conscience! Conscience! divine instinct, immortal and heavenly voice.” — Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Émile IV)
Verified English quotation. Primary source: Émile IV. Theme: morality.
English
Conscience! Conscience! divine instinct, immortal and heavenly voice.
Source and attribution
The archive attributes this English wording to Émile IV and files it under Social Contract Theory. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.
About Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) was a Genevan-born philosopher and novelist of the French Enlightenment who unsettled its confidence in progress. Discourses on inequality and the arts, Émile, and The Social Contract made him famous and persecuted.
Interpretation
Rousseau gives conscience a role that most Enlightenment accounts did not. In Émile he argues against the view that moral judgement is learned from society, holding instead that there is an innate sentiment that reliably distinguishes good from ill and that reasoning has mostly been used to rationalise what people wanted. The claim is not that conscience is infallible but that it is prior to and more reliable than the calculations built on top of it.
Why it matters
It is a useful check on cases where you have reasoned carefully to a conclusion you are uneasy about — that unease may be tracking something the reasoning omitted.
Concepts in this quote
- Morality
- Morality in philosophy concerns right and wrong, obligation, and the standards by which we judge persons and acts.
How to cite this quotation
APA: Jean-Jacques Rousseau. (n.d.). Conscience! Conscience! divine instinct, immortal and heavenly voice. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0338
MLA: Jean-Jacques Rousseau. “Conscience! Conscience! divine instinct, immortal and heavenly voice..” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0338.
Chicago: Jean-Jacques Rousseau. “Conscience! Conscience! divine instinct, immortal and heavenly voice..” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0338.
Frequently asked questions
What is the source of the quotation “Conscience! Conscience! divine instinct, immortal and heavenly voice.”?
The passage is attributed to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Émile IV. The archive attributes this English wording to Émile IV and files it under Social Contract Theory. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.
What does Jean-Jacques Rousseau mean by morality?
Moral philosophy asks whether morality is objective, how reasons bind us, and how character, rules, and consequences relate. Traditions differ on whether duty, virtue, or outcomes come first. This passage enters that discussion through morality.