{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_11136/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_11136","id":"gutenberg_11136","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11136","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Early Modern (c. 1450-1750)","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Equality","Natural law","Political science"],"text":"A Discourse Upon The Origin And The Foundation Of The Inequality Among\nMankind\n\nBy J. J. Rousseau\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY NOTE\n\nJean Jacques Rousseau was born at Geneva, June 28, 1712, the son of a\nwatchmaker of French origin. His education was irregular, and though\nhe tried many professions--including engraving, music, and\nteaching--he found it difficult to support himself in any of them. The\ndiscovery of his talent as a writer came with the winning of a prize\noffered by the Academy of Dijon for a discourse on the question,\n\"Whether the progress of the sciences and of letters has tended to\ncorrupt or to elevate morals.\" He argued so brilliantly that the\ntendency of civilization was degrading that he became at once famous.\nThe discourse here printed on the causes of inequality among men was\nwritten in a similar competition.\n\nHe now concentrated his powers upon literature, producing two novels,\n\"La Nouvelle Heloise,\" the forerunner and parent of endless\nsentimental and picturesque fictions; and \"Emile, ou l'Education,\" a\nwork which has had enormous influence on the theory and practise of\npedagogy down to our own time and in which the Savoyard Vicar appears,\nwho is used as the mouthpiece for Rousseau's own religious ideas. \"Le\nContrat Social\" (1762) elaborated the doctrine of the discourse on\ninequality. Both historically and philosophically it is unsound; but\nit was the chief literary source of the enthusiasm for liberty,\nfraternity, and equality, which inspired the leaders of the French\nRevolution, and its effects passed far beyond France.\n\nHis most famous work, the \"Confessions,\" was published after his\ndeath. This book is a mine of information as to his life, but it is\nfar from trustworthy; and the picture it gives of the author's\npersonality and conduct, though painted in such a way as to make it\nabsorbingly interesting, is often unpleasing in the highest degree.\nBut it is one of the great autobiographies of the world.\n\nDuring Rousseau's later years he was the victim of the delusion of\npersecution; and although he was protected by a succession of good\nfriends, he came to distrust and quarrel with each in turn. He died at\nErmenonville, near Paris, July 2, 1778, the most widely influential\nFrench writer of his age.\n\nThe Savoyard Vicar and his \"Profession of Faith\" are introduced into\n\"Emile\" not, according to the author, because he wishes to exhibit his\nprinciples as those which should be taught, but to give an example of\nthe way in which religious matters should be discussed with the young.\nNevertheless, it is universally recognized that these opinions are\nRousseau's own, and represent in short form his characteristic\nattitude toward religious belief. The Vicar himself is believed to\ncombine the traits of two Savoyard priests whom Rousseau knew in his\nyouth. The more important was the Abbe Gaime, whom he had known at\nTurin; the other, the Abbe Gatier, who had taught him at Annecy.\n\n\n\n\nQUESTION PROPOSED BY THE ACADEMY OF DIJON\n\nWhat is the Origin of the Inequality among Mankind; and whether such\nInequality is authorized by the Law of Nature?\n\n\n\n\nA DISCOURSE UPON THE ORIGIN AND THE FOUNDATION OF THE INEQUALITY AMONG\nMANKIND\n\n'Tis of man I am to speak; and the very question, in answer to which I\nam to speak of him, sufficiently informs me that I am going to speak\nto men; for to those alone, who are not afraid of honouring truth, it\nbelongs to propose discussions of this kind. I shall therefore\nmaintain with confidence the cause of mankind before the sages, who\ninvite me to stand up in its defence; and I shall think myself happy,\nif I can but behave in a manner not unworthy of my subject and of my\njudges.\n\nI conceive two species of inequality among men; one which I call\nnatural, or physical inequality, because it is established by nature,\nand consists in the difference of age, health, bodily strength, and\nthe qualities of the mind, or of the soul; the other which may be\ntermed moral, or political inequality, because it depends on a kind of\nconvention, and is established, or at least authorized, by the common\nconsent of mankind. This species of inequality consists in the\ndifferent privileges, which some men enjoy, to the prejudice of\nothers, such as that of being richer, more honoured, more powerful,\nand even that of exacting obedience from them.\n\nIt were absurd to ask, what is the cause of natural inequality, seeing\nthe bare definition of natural inequality answers the question: it\nwould be more absurd still to enquire, if there might not be some\nessential connection between the two species of inequality, as it\nwould be asking, in other words, if those who command are necessarily\nbetter men than those who obey; and if strength of body or of mind,\nwisdom or virtue are always to be found in individuals, in the same\nproportion with power, or riches: a question, fit perhaps to be\ndiscussed by slaves in the hearing of their masters, but unbecoming\nfree and reasonable beings in quest of truth.\n\nWhat therefore is precisely the subject of this discourse? It is to\npoint out, in the progress of things, that moment, when, right taking\nplace of violence, nature became subject to law; to display that chain\nof surprising events, in consequence of which the strong submitted to\nserve the weak, and the people to purchase imaginary ease, at the\nexpense of real happiness.\n\nThe philosophers, who have examined the foundations of society, have,\nevery one of them, perceived the necessity of tracing it back to a\nstate of nature, but not one of them has ever arrived there. Some of\nthem have not scrupled to attribute to man in that state the ideas of\njustice and injustice, without troubling their heads to prove, that he\nreally must have had such ideas, or even that such ideas were useful\nto him: others have spoken of the natural right of every man to keep\nwhat belongs to him, without letting us know what they meant by the\nword belong; others, without further ceremony ascribing to the\nstrongest an authority over the weakest, have immediately struck out\ngovernment, without thinking of the time requisite for men to form any\nnotion of the things signified by the words authority and government.\nAll of them, in fine, constantly harping on wants, avidity,\noppression, desires and pride, have transferred to the state of nature\nideas picked up in the bosom of society. In speaking of savages they\ndescribed citizens. Nay, few of our own writers seem to have so much\nas doubted, that a state of nature did once actually exist; though it\nplainly appears by Sacred History, that even the first man,\nimmediately furnished as he was by God himself with both instructions\nand precepts, never lived in that state, and that, if we give to the\nbooks of Moses that credit which every Christian philosopher ought to\ngive to them, we must deny that, even before the deluge, such a state\never existed among men, unless they fell into it by some extraordinary\nevent: a paradox very difficult to maintain, and altogether impossible\nto prove.\n\nLet us begin therefore, by laying aside facts, for they do not affect\nthe question. The researches, in which we may engage on this occasion,\nare not to be taken for historical truths, but merely as hypothetical\nand conditional reasonings, fitter to illustrate the nature of things,\nthan to show their true origin, like those systems, which our\nnaturalists daily make of the formation of the world. Religion\ncommands us to believe, that men, having been drawn by God himself out\nof a state of nature, are unequal, because it is his pleasure they\nshould be so; but religion does not forbid us to draw conjectures\nsolely from the nature of man, considered in itself, and from that of\nthe beings which surround him, concerning the fate of mankind, had\nthey been left to themselves. This is then the question I am to\nanswer, the question I propose to examine in the present discourse. As\nmankind in general have an interest in my subject, I shall endeavour\nto use a language suitable to all nations; or rather, forgetting the\ncircumstances of time and place in order to think of nothing but the\nmen I speak to, I shall suppose myself in the Lyceum of Athens,\nrepeating the lessons of my masters before the Platos and the\nXenocrates of that famous seat of philosophy as my judges, and in\npresence of the whole human species as my audience.\n\nO man, whatever country you may belong to, whatever your opinions may\nbe, attend to my words; you shall hear your history such as I think I\nhave read it, not in books composed by those like you, for they are\nliars, but in the book of nature which never lies. All that I shall\nrepeat after her, must be true, without any intermixture of falsehood,\nbut where I may happen, without intending it, to introduce my own\nconceits. The times I am going to speak of are very remote. How much\nyou are changed from what you once were! 'Tis in a manner the life of\nyour species that I am going to write, from the qualities which you\nhave received, and which your education and your habits could deprave,\nbut could not destroy. There is, I am sensible, an age at which every\nindividual of you would choose to stop; and you will look out for the\nage at which, had you your wish, your species had stopped. Uneasy at\nyour present condition for reasons which threaten your unhappy\nposterity with still greater uneasiness, you will perhaps wish it were\nin your power to go back; and this sentiment ought to be considered,\nas the panegyric of your first parents, the condemnation of your\ncontemporaries, and a source of terror to all those who may have the\nmisfortune of succeeding you.\n\n\n\n\nDISCOURSE FIRST PART\n\nHowever important it may be, in order to form a proper judgment of the\nnatural state of man, to consider him from his origin, and to examine\nhim, as it were, in the first embryo of the species; I shall not\nattempt to trace his organization through its successive approaches to\nperfection: I shall not stop to examine in the animal system what he\nmight have been in the beginning, to become at last what he actually\nis; I shall not inquire whether, as Aristotle thinks, his neglected\nnails were no better at first than crooked talons; whether his whole\nbody was not, bear-like, thick covered with rough hair; and whether,\nwalking upon all-fours, his eyes, directed to the earth, and confined\nto a horizon of a few paces extent, did not at once point out the\nnature and limits of his ideas. I could only form vague, and almost\nimaginary, conjectures on this subject. Comparative anatomy has not as\nyet been sufficiently improved; neither have the observations of\nnatural philosophy been sufficiently ascertained, to establish upon\nsuch foundations the basis of a solid system. For this reason, without\nhaving recourse to the supernatural informations with which we have\nbeen favoured on this head, or paying any attention to the changes,\nthat must have happened in the conformation of the interior and\nexterior parts of man's body, in proportion as he applied his members\nto new purposes, and took to new aliments, I shall suppose his\nconformation to have always been, what we now behold it; that he\nalways walked on two feet, made the same use of his hands that we do\nof ours, extended his looks over the whole face of nature, and\nmeasured with his eyes the vast extent of the heavens.\n\nIf I strip this being, thus constituted, of all the supernatural gifts\nwhich he may have received, and of all the artificial faculties, which\nwe could not have acquired but by slow degrees; if I consider him, in\na word, such as he must have issued from the hands of nature; I see an\nanimal less strong than some, and less active than others, but, upon\nthe whole, the most advantageously organized of any; I see him\nsatisfying the calls of hunger under the first oak, and those of\nthirst at the first rivulet; I see him laying himself down to sleep at\nthe foot of the same tree that afforded him his meal; and behold, this\ndone, all his wants are completely supplied.\n\nThe earth left to its own natural fertility and covered with immense\nwoods, that no hatchet ever disfigured, offers at every step food and\nshelter to every species of animals. Men, dispersed among them,\nobserve and imitate their industry, and thus rise to the instinct of\nbeasts; with this advantage, that, whereas every species of beasts is\nconfined to one peculiar instinct, man, who perhaps has not any that\nparticularly belongs to him, appropriates to himself those of all\nother animals, and lives equally upon most of the different aliments,\nwhich they only divide among themselves; a circumstance which\nqualifies him to find his subsistence, with more ease than any of\nthem.\n\nMen, accustomed from their infancy to the inclemency of the weather,\nand to the rigour of the different seasons; inured to fatigue, and\nobliged to defend, naked and without arms, their life and their prey\nagainst the other wild inhabitants of the forest, or at least to avoid\ntheir fury by flight, acquire a robust and almost unalterable habit of\nbody; the children, bringing with them into the world the excellent\nconstitution of their parents, and strengthening it by the same\nexercises that first produced it, attain by this means all the vigour\nthat the human frame is capable of. Nature treats them exactly in the\nsame manner that Sparta treated the children of her citizens; those\nwho come well formed into the world she renders strong and robust, and\ndestroys all the rest; differing in this respect from our societies,\nin which the state, by permitting children to become burdensome to\ntheir parents, murders them all without distinction, even in the wombs\nof their mothers.\n\nThe body being the only instrument that savage man is acquainted with,\nhe employs it to different uses, of which ours, for want of practice,\nare incapable; and we may thank our industry for the loss of that\nstrength and agility, which necessity obliges him to acquire. Had he a\nhatchet, would his hand so easily snap off from an oak so stout a\nbranch? Had he a sling, would it dart a stone to so great a distance?\nHad he a ladder, would he run so nimbly up a tree? Had he a horse,\nwould he with such swiftness shoot along the plain? Give civilized man\nbut time to gather about him all his machines, and no doubt he will be\nan overmatch for the savage: but if you have a mind to see a contest\nstill more unequal, place them naked and unarmed one opposite to the\nother; and you will soon discover the advantage there is in\nperpetually having all our forces at our disposal, in being constantly\nprepared against all events, and in always carrying ourselves, as it\nwere, whole and entire about us.\n\nHobbes would have it that man is naturally void of fear, and always\nintent upon attacking and fighting. An illustrious philosopher thinks\non the contrary, and Cumberland and Puffendorff likewise affirm it,\nthat nothing is more fearful than man in a state of nature, that he is\nalways in a tremble, and ready to fly at the first motion he\nperceives, at the first noise that strikes his ears. This, indeed, may\nbe very true in regard to objects with which he is not acquainted; and\nI make no doubt of his being terrified at every new sight that\npresents itself, as often as he cannot distinguish the physical good\nand evil which he may expect from it, nor compare his forces with the\ndangers he has to encounter; circumstances that seldom occur in a\nstate of nature, where all things proceed in so uniform a manner, and\nthe face of the earth is not liable to those sudden and continual\nchanges occasioned in it by the passions and inconstancies of\ncollected bodies. But savage man living among other animals without\nany society or fixed habitation, and finding himself early under a\nnecessity of measuring his strength with theirs, soon makes a\ncomparison between both, and finding that he surpasses them more in\naddress, than they surpass him in strength, he learns not to be any\nlonger in dread of them. Turn out a bear or a wolf against a sturdy,\nactive, resolute savage, (and this they all are,) provided with stones\nand a good stick; and you will soon find that the danger is at least\nequal on both sides, and that after several trials of this kind, wild\nbeasts, who are not fond of attacking each other, will not be very\nfond of attacking man, whom they have found every whit as wild as\nthemselves. As to animals who have really more strength than man has\naddress, he is, in regard to them, what other weaker species are, who\nfind means to subsist notwithstanding; he has even this great\nadvantage over such weaker species, that being equally fleet with\nthem, and finding on every tree an almost inviolable asylum, he is\nalways at liberty to take it or leave it, as he likes best, and of\ncourse to fight or to fly, whichever is most agreeable to him. To this\nwe may add that no animal naturally makes war upon man, except in the\ncase of self-defence or extreme hunger; nor ever expresses against him\nany of these violent antipathies, which seem to indicate that some\nparticular species are intended by nature for the food of others.\n\nBut there are other more formidable enemies, and against which man is\nnot provided with the same means of defence; I mean natural\ninfirmities, infancy, old age, and sickness of every kind, melancholy\nproofs of our weakness, whereof the two first are common to all\nanimals, and the last chiefly attends man living in a state of\nsociety. It is even observable in regard to infancy, that the mother\nbeing able to carry her child about with her, wherever she goes, can\nperform the duty of a nurse with a great deal less trouble, than the\nfemales of many other animals, who are obliged to be constantly going\nand coming with no small labour and fatigue, one way to look out for\ntheir own subsistence, and another to suckle and feed their young\nones. True it is that, if the woman happens to perish, her child is\nexposed to the greatest danger of perishing with her; but this danger\nis common to a hundred other species, whose young ones require a great\ndeal of time to be able to provide for themselves; and if our infancy\nis longer than theirs, our life is longer likewise; so that, in this\nrespect too, all things are in a manner equal; not but that there are\nother rules concerning the duration of the first age of life, and the\nnumber of the young of man and other animals, but they do not belong\nto my subject. With old men, who stir and perspire but little, the\ndemand for food diminishes with their abilities to provide it; and as\na savage life would exempt them from the gout and the rheumatism, and\nold age is of all ills that which human assistance is least capable of\nalleviating, they would at last go off, without its being perceived by\nothers that they ceased to exist, and almost without perceiving it\nthemselves.\n\nIn regard to sickness, I shall not repeat the vain and false\ndeclamations made use of to discredit medicine by most men, while they\nenjoy their health; I shall only ask if there are any solid\nobservations from which we may conclude that in those countries where\nthe healing art is most neglected, the mean duration of man's life is\nshorter than in those where it is most cultivated? And how is it\npossible this should be the case, if we inflict more diseases upon\nourselves than medicine can supply us with remedies! The extreme\ninequalities in the manner of living of the several classes of\nmankind, the excess of idleness in some, and of labour in others, the\nfacility of irritating and satisfying our sensuality and our\nappetites, the too exquisite and out of the way aliments of the rich,\nwhich fill them with fiery juices, and bring on indigestions, the\nunwholesome food of the poor, of which even, bad as it is, they very\noften fall short, and the want of which tempts them, every opportunity\nthat offers, to eat greedily and overload their stomachs; watchings,\nexcesses of every kind, immoderate transports of all the passions,\nfatigues, waste of spirits, in a word, the numberless pains and\nanxieties annexed to every condition, and which the mind of man is\nconstantly a prey to; these are the fatal proofs that most of our ills\nare of our own making, and that we might have avoided them all by\nadhering to the simple, uniform and solitary way of life prescribed to\nus by nature. Allowing that nature intended we should always enjoy\ngood health, I dare almost affirm that a state of reflection is a\nstate against nature, and that the man who meditates is a depraved\nanimal. We need only call to mind the good constitution of savages,\nof those at least whom we have not destroyed by our strong liquors; we\nneed only reflect, that they are strangers to almost every disease,\nexcept those occasioned by wounds and old age, to be in a manner\nconvinced that the history of human diseases might be easily composed\nby pursuing that of civil societies. Such at least was the opinion of\nPlato, who concluded from certain remedies made use of or approved by\nPodalyrus and Macaon at the Siege of Troy, that several disorders,\nwhich these remedies were found to bring on in his days, were not\nknown among men at that remote period.\n\nMan therefore, in a state of nature where there are so few sources of\nsickness, can have no great occasion for physic, and still less for\nphysicians; neither is the human species more to be pitied in this\nrespect, than any other species of animals. Ask those who make hunting\ntheir recreation or business, if in their excursions they meet with\nmany sick or feeble animals. They meet with many carrying the marks of\nconsiderable wounds, that have been perfectly well healed and closed\nup; with many, whose bones formerly broken, and whose limbs almost\ntorn off, have completely knit and united, without any other surgeon\nbut time, any other regimen but their usual way of living, and whose\ncures were not the less perfect for their not having been tortured\nwith incisions, poisoned with drugs, or worn out by diet and\nabstinence. In a word, however useful medicine well administered may\nbe to us who live in a state of society, it is still past doubt, that\nif, on the one hand, the sick savage, destitute of help, has nothing\nto hope from nature, on the other, he has nothing to fear but from his\ndisease; a circumstance, which oftens renders his situation preferable\nto ours.\n\nLet us therefore beware of confounding savage man with the men, whom\nwe daily see and converse with. Nature behaves towards all animals\nleft to her care with a predilection, that seems to prove how jealous\nshe is of that prerogative. The horse, the cat, the bull, nay the ass\nitself, have generally a higher stature, and always a more robust\nconstitution, more vigour, more strength and courage in their forests\nthan in our houses; they lose half these advantages by becoming\ndomestic animals; it looks as if all our attention to treat them\nkindly, and to feed them well, served only to bastardize them. It is\nthus with man himself. In proportion as he becomes sociable and a\nslave to others, he becomes weak, fearful, mean-spirited, and his soft\nand effeminate way of living at once completes the enervation of his\nstrength and of his courage. We may add, that there must be still a\nwider difference between man and man in a savage and domestic\ncondition, than between beast and beast; for as men and beasts have\nbeen treated alike by nature, all the conveniences with which men\nindulge themselves more than they do the beasts tamed by them, are so\nmany particular causes which make them degenerate more sensibly.\n\nNakedness therefore, the want of houses, and of all these\nunnecessaries, which we consider as so very necessary, are not such\nmighty evils in respect to these primitive men, and much less still\nany obstacle to their preservation. Their skins, it is true, are\ndestitute of hair; but then they have no occasion for any such\ncovering in warm climates; and in cold climates they soon learn to\napply to that use those of the animals they have conquered; they have\nbut two feet to run with, but they have two hands to defend themselves\nwith, and provide for all their wants; it costs them perhaps a great\ndeal of time and trouble to make their children walk, but the mothers\ncarry them with ease; an advantage not granted to other species of\nanimals, with whom the mother, when pursued, is obliged to abandon her\nyoung ones, or regulate her steps by theirs. In short, unless we admit\nthose singular and fortuitous concurrences of circumstances, which I\nshall speak of hereafter, and which, it is very possible, may never\nhave existed, it is evident, in every state of the question, that the\nman, who first made himself clothes and built himself a cabin,\nsupplied himself with things which he did not much want, since he had\nlived without them till then; and why should he not have been able to\nsupport in his riper years, the same kind of life, which he had\nsupported from his infancy?\n\nAlone, idle, and always surrounded with danger, savage man must be\nfond of sleep, and sleep lightly like other animals, who think but\nlittle, and may, in a manner, be said to sleep all the time they do\nnot think: self-preservation being almost his only concern, he must\nexercise those faculties most, which are most serviceable in attacking\nand in defending, whether to subdue his prey, or to prevent his\nbecoming that of other animals: those organs, on the contrary, which\nsoftness and sensuality can alone improve, must remain in a state of\nrudeness, utterly incompatible with all manner of delicacy; and as his\nsenses are divided on this point, his touch and his taste must be\nextremely coarse and blunt; his sight, his hearing, and his smelling\nequally subtle: such is the animal state in general, and accordingly\nif we may believe travellers, it is that of most savage nations. We\nmust not therefore be surprised, that the Hottentots of the Cape of\nGood Hope, distinguish with their naked eyes ships on the ocean, at as\ngreat a distance as the Dutch can discern them with their glasses; nor\nthat the savages of America should have tracked the Spaniards with\ntheir noses, to as great a degree of exactness, as the best dogs could\nhave done; nor that all these barbarous nations support nakedness\nwithout pain, use such large quantities of Piemento to give their food\na relish, and drink like water the strongest liquors of Europe.\n\nAs yet I have considered man merely in his physical capacity; let us\nnow endeavour to examine him in a metaphysical and moral light.\n\nI can discover nothing in any mere animal but an ingenious machine, to\nwhich nature has given senses to wind itself up, and guard, to a\ncertain degree, against everything that might destroy or disorder it.\nI perceive the very same things in the human machine, with this\ndifference, that nature alone operates in all the operations of the\nbeast, whereas man, as a free agent, has a share in his. One chooses\nby instinct; the other by an act of liberty; for which reason the\nbeast cannot deviate from the rules that have been prescribed to it,\neven in cases where such deviation might be useful, and man often\ndeviates from the rules laid down for him to his prejudice. Thus a\npigeon would starve near a dish of the best flesh-meat, and a cat on a\nheap of fruit or corn, though both might very well support life with\nthe food which they thus disdain, did they but bethink themselves to\nmake a trial of it: it is in this manner dissolute men run into\nexcesses, which bring on fevers and death itself; because the mind\ndepraves the senses, and when nature ceases to speak, the will still\ncontinues to dictate.\n\nAll animals must be allowed to have ideas, since all animals have\nsenses; they even combine their ideas to a certain degree, and, in\nthis respect, it is only the difference of such degree, that\nconstitutes the difference between man and beast: some philosophers\nhave even advanced, that there is a greater difference between some\nmen and some others, than between some men and some beasts; it is not\ntherefore so much the understanding that constitutes, among animals,\nthe specifical distinction of man, as his quality of a free agent.\nNature speaks to all animals, and beasts obey her voice. Man feels the\nsame impression, but he at the same time perceives that he is free to\nresist or to acquiesce; and it is in the consciousness of this\nliberty, that the spirituality of his soul chiefly appears: for\nnatural philosophy explains, in some measure, the mechanism of the\nsenses and the formation of ideas; but in the power of willing, or\nrather of choosing, and in the consciousness of this power, nothing\ncan be discovered but acts, that are purely spiritual, and cannot be\naccounted for by the laws of mechanics.\n\nBut though the difficulties, in which all these questions are\ninvolved, should leave some room to dispute on this difference between\nman and beast, there is another very specific quality that\ndistinguishes them, and a quality which will admit of no dispute; this\nis the faculty of improvement; a faculty which, as circumstances\noffer, successively unfolds all the other faculties, and resides among\nus not only in the species, but in the individuals that compose it;\nwhereas a beast is, at the end of some months, all he ever will be\nduring the rest of his life; and his species, at the end of a thousand\nyears, precisely what it was the first year of that long period. Why\nis man alone subject to dotage? Is it not, because he thus returns to\nhis primitive condition? And because, while the beast, which has\nacquired nothing and has likewise nothing to lose, continues always in\npossession of his instinct, man, losing by old age, or by accident,\nall the acquisitions he had made in consequence of his perfectibility,\nthus falls back even lower than beasts themselves? It would be a\nmelancholy necessity for us to be obliged to allow, that this\ndistinctive and almost unlimited faculty is the source of all man's\nmisfortunes; that it is this faculty, which, though by slow degrees,\ndraws them out of their original condition, in which his days would\nslide away insensibly in peace and innocence; that it is this faculty,\nwhich, in a succession of ages, produces his discoveries and mistakes,\nhis virtues and his vices, and, at long run, renders him both his own\nand nature's tyrant. It would be shocking to be obliged to commend, as\na beneficent being, whoever he was that first suggested to the\n_Oronoco_ Indians the use of those boards which they bind on the\ntemples of their children, and which secure to them the enjoyment of\nsome part at least of their natural imbecility and happiness.\n\nSavage man, abandoned by nature to pure instinct, or rather\nindemnified for that which has perhaps been denied to him by faculties\ncapable of immediately supplying the place of it, and of raising him\nafterwards a great deal higher, would therefore begin with functions\nthat were merely animal: to see and to feel would be his first\ncondition, which he would enjoy in common with other animals. To will\nand not to will, to wish and to fear, would be the first, and in a\nmanner, the only operations of his soul, till new circumstances\noccasioned new developments.\n\nLet moralists say what they will, the human understanding is greatly\nindebted to the passions, which, on their side, are likewise\nuniversally allowed to be greatly indebted to the human understanding.\nIt is by the activity of our passions, that our reason improves: we\ncovet knowledge merely because we covet enjoyment, and it is\nimpossible to conceive why a man exempt from fears and desires should\ntake the trouble to reason. The passions, in their turn, owe their\norigin to our wants, and their increase to our progress in science;\nfor we cannot desire or fear anything, but in consequence of the ideas\nwe have of it, or of the simple impulses of nature; and savage man,\ndestitute of every species of knowledge, experiences no passions but\nthose of this last kind; his desires never extend beyond his physical\nwants; he knows no goods but food, a female, and rest; he fears no\nevil but pain, and hunger; I say pain, and not death; for no animal,\nmerely as such, will ever know what it is to die, and the knowledge of\ndeath, and of its terrors, is one of the first acquisitions made by\nman, in consequence of his deviating from the animal state.\n\nI could easily, were it requisite, cite facts in support of this\nopinion, and show, that the progress of the mind has everywhere kept\npace exactly with the wants, to which nature had left the inhabitants\nexposed, or to which circumstances had subjected them, and\nconsequently to the passions, which inclined them to provide for these\nwants. I could exhibit in Egypt the arts starting up, and extending\nthemselves with the inundations of the Nile; I could pursue them in\ntheir progress among the Greeks, where they were seen to bud forth,\ngrow, and rise to the heavens, in the midst of the sands and rocks of\nAttica, without being able to take root on the fertile banks of the\nEurotas; I would observe that, in general, the inhabitants of the\nnorth are more industrious than those of the south, because they can\nless do without industry; as if nature thus meant to make all things\nequal, by giving to the mind that fertility she has denied to the\nsoil.\n\nBut exclusive of the uncertain testimonies of history, who does not\nperceive that everything seems to remove from savage man the\ntemptation and the means of altering his condition? His imagination\npaints nothing to him; his heart asks nothing from him. His moderate\nwants are so easily supplied with what he everywhere finds ready to\nhis hand, and he stands at such a distance from the degree of\nknowledge requisite to covet more, that he can neither have foresight\nnor curiosity. The spectacle of nature, by growing quite familiar to\nhim, becomes at last equally indifferent. It is constantly the same\norder, constantly the same revolutions; he has not sense enough to\nfeel surprise at the sight of the greatest wonders; and it is not in\nhis mind we must look for that philosophy, which man must have to know\nhow to observe once, what he has every day seen. His soul, which\nnothing disturbs, gives itself up entirely to the consciousness of its\nactual existence, without any thought of even the nearest futurity;\nand his projects, equally confined with his views, scarce extend to\nthe end of the day. Such is, even at present, the degree of foresight\nin the Caribbean: he sells his cotton bed in the morning, and comes in\nthe evening, with tears in his eyes, to buy it back, not having\nforeseen that he should want it again the next night.\n\nThe more we meditate on this subject, the wider does the distance\nbetween mere sensation and the most simple knowledge become in our\neyes; and it is impossible to conceive how man, by his own powers\nalone, without the assistance of communication, and the spur of\nnecessity, could have got over so great an interval. How many ages\nperhaps revolved, before men beheld any other fire but that of the\nheavens? How many different accidents must have concurred to make them\nacquainted with the most common uses of this element? How often have\nthey let it go out, before they knew the art of reproducing it? And\nhow often perhaps has not every one of these secrets perished with the\ndiscoverer? What shall we say of agriculture, an art which requires so\nmuch labour and foresight; which depends upon other arts; which, it is\nvery evident, cannot be practised but in a society, if not a formed\none, at least one of some standing, and which does not so much serve\nto draw aliments from the earth, for the earth would yield them\nwithout all that trouble, as to oblige her to produce those things,\nwhich we like best, preferably to others? But let us suppose that men\nhad multiplied to such a degree, that the natural products of the\nearth no longer sufficed for their support; a supposition which, by\nthe bye, would prove that this kind of life would be very advantageous\nto the human species; let us suppose that, without forge or anvil, the\ninstruments of husbandry had dropped from the heavens into the hands\nof savages, that these men had got the better of that mortal aversion\nthey all have for constant labour; that they had learned to foretell\ntheir wants at so great a distance of time; that they had guessed\nexactly how they were to break the earth, commit their seed to it, and\nplant trees; that they had found out the art of grinding their corn,\nand improving by fermentation the juice of their grapes; all\noperations which we must allow them to have learned from the gods,\nsince we cannot conceive how they should make such discoveries of\nthemselves; after all these fine presents, what man would be mad\nenough to cultivate a field, that may be robbed by the first comer,\nman or beast, who takes a fancy to the produce of it. And would any\nman consent to spend his day in labour and fatigue, when the rewards\nof his labour and fatigue became more and more precarious in\nproportion to his want of them? In a word, how could this situation\nengage men to cultivate the earth, as long as it was not parcelled out\namong them, that is, as long as a state of nature subsisted.\n\nThough we should suppose savage man as well versed in the art of\nthinking, as philosophers make him; though we were, after them, to\nmake him a philosopher himself, discovering of himself the sublimest\ntruths, forming to himself, by the most abstract arguments, maxims of\njustice and reason drawn from the love of order in general, or from\nthe known will of his Creator: in a word, though we were to suppose\nhis mind as intelligent and enlightened, as it must, and is, in fact,\nfound to be dull and stupid; what benefit would the species receive\nfrom all these metaphysical discoveries, which could not be\ncommunicated, but must perish with the individual who had made them?\nWhat progress could mankind make in the forests, scattered up and down\namong the other animals? And to what degree could men mutually improve\nand enlighten each other, when they had no fixed habitation, nor any\nneed of each other's assistance; when the same persons scarcely met\ntwice in their whole lives, and on meeting neither spoke to, or so\nmuch as knew each other?\n\nLet us consider how many ideas we owe to the use of speech; how much\ngrammar exercises, and facilitates the operations of the mind; let us,\nbesides, reflect on the immense pains and time that the first\ninvention of languages must have required: Let us add these\nreflections to the preceding; and then we may judge how many thousand\nages must have been requisite to develop successively the operations,\nwhich the human mind is capable of producing.\n\nI must now beg leave to stop one moment to consider the perplexities\nattending the origin of languages. I might here barely cite or repeat\nthe researches made, in relation to this question, by the Abbe de\nCondillac, which all fully confirm my system, and perhaps even\nsuggested to me the first idea of it. But, as the manner, in which the\nphilosopher resolves the difficulties of his own starting, concerning\nthe origin of arbitrary signs, shows that he supposes, what I doubt,\nnamely a kind of society already established among the inventors of\nlanguages; I think it my duty, at the same time that I refer to his\nreflections, to give my own, in order to expose the same difficulties\nin a light suitable to my subject. The first that offers is how\nlanguages could become necessary; for as there was no correspondence\nbetween men, nor the least necessity for any, there is no conceiving\nthe necessity of this invention, nor the possibility of it, if it was\nnot indispensable. I might say, with many others, that languages are\nthe fruit of the domestic intercourse between fathers, mothers, and\nchildren: but this, besides its not answering any difficulties, would\nbe committing the same fault with those, who reasoning on the state of\nnature, transfer to it ideas collected in society, always consider\nfamilies as living together under one roof, and their members as\nobserving among themselves an union, equally intimate and permanent\nwith that which we see exist in a civil state, where so many common\ninterests conspire to unite them; whereas in this primitive state, as\nthere were neither houses nor cabins, nor any kind of property, every\none took up his lodging at random, and seldom continued above one\nnight in the same place; males and females united without any\npremeditated design, as chance, occasion, or desire brought them\ntogether, nor had they any great occasion for language to make known\ntheir thoughts to each other. They parted with the same ease. The\nmother suckled her children, when just born, for her own sake; but\nafterwards out of love and affection to them, when habit and custom\nhad made them dear to her; but they no sooner gained strength enough\nto run about in quest of food than they separated even from her of\ntheir own accord; and as they scarce had any other method of not\nlosing each other, than that of remaining constantly in each other's\nsight, they soon came to such a pass of forgetfulness, as not even to\nknow each other, when they happened to meet again. I must further\nobserve that the child having all his wants to explain, and\nconsequently more things to say to his mother, than the mother can\nhave to say to him, it is he that must be at the chief expense of\ninvention, and the language he makes use of must be in a great measure\nhis own work; this makes the number of languages equal to that of the\nindividuals who are to speak them; and this multiplicity of languages\nis further increased by their roving and vagabond kind of life, which\nallows no idiom time enough to acquire any consistency; for to say\nthat the mother would have dictated to the child the words he must\nemploy to ask her this thing and that, may well enough explain in what\nmanner languages, already formed, are taught, but it does not show us\nin what manner they are first formed.\n\nLet us suppose this first difficulty conquered: Let us for a moment\nconsider ourselves at this side of the immense space, which must have\nseparated the pure state of nature from that in which languages became\nnecessary, and let us, after allowing such necessity, examine how\nlanguages could begin to be established. A new difficulty this, still\nmore stubborn than the preceding; for if men stood in need of speech\nto learn to think, they must have stood in still greater need of the\nart of thinking to invent that of speaking; and though we could\nconceive how the sounds of the voice came to be taken for the\nconventional interpreters of our ideas we should not be the nearer\nknowing who could have been the interpreters of this convention for\nsuch ideas, as, in consequence of their not having any sensible\nobjects, could not be made manifest by gesture or voice; so that we\ncan scarce form any tolerable conjectures concerning the birth of this\nart of communicating our thoughts, and establishing a correspondence\nbetween minds: a sublime art which, though so remote from its origin,\nphilosophers still behold at such a prodigious distance from its\nperfection, that I never met with one of them bold enough to affirm it\nwould ever arrive there, though the revolutions necessarily produced\nby time were suspended in its favour; though prejudice could be\nbanished from, or would be at least content to sit silent in the\npresence of our academies, and though these societies should\nconsecrate themselves, entirely and during whole ages, to the study of\nthis intricate object.\n\nThe first language of man, the most universal and most energetic of\nall languages, in short, the only language he had occasion for, before\nthere was a necessity of persuading assembled multitudes, was the cry\nof nature. As this cry was never extorted but by a kind of instinct in\nthe most urgent cases, to implore assistance in great danger, or\nrelief in great sufferings, it was of little use in the common\noccurrences of life, where more moderate sentiments generally prevail.\nWhen the ideas of men began to extend and multiply, and a closer\ncommunication began to take place among them, they laboured to devise\nmore numerous signs, and a more extensive language: they multiplied\nthe inflections of the voice, and added to them gestures, which are,\nin their own nature, more expressive, and whose meaning depends less\non any prior determination. They therefore expressed visible and\nmovable objects by gestures and those which strike the ear, by\nimitative sounds: but as gestures scarcely indicate anything except\nobjects that are actually present or can be easily described, and\nvisible actions; as they are not of general use, since darkness or the\ninterposition of an opaque medium renders them useless; and as besides\nthey require attention rather than excite it: men at length bethought\nthemselves of substituting for them the articulations of voice, which,\nwithout having the same relation to any determinate object, are, in\nquality of instituted signs, fitter to represent all our ideas; a\nsubstitution, which could only have been made by common consent, and\nin a manner pretty difficult to practise by men, whose rude organs\nwere unimproved by exercise; a substitution, which is in itself more\ndifficult to be conceived, since the motives to this unanimous\nagreement must have been somehow or another expressed, and speech\ntherefore appears to have been exceedingly requisite to establish the\nuse of speech.\n\nWe must allow that the words, first made use of by men, had in their\nminds a much more extensive signification, than those employed in\nlanguages of some standing, and that, considering how ignorant they\nwere of the division of speech into its constituent parts; they at\nfirst gave every word the meaning of an entire proposition. When\nafterwards they began to perceive the difference between the subject\nand attribute, and between verb and noun, a distinction which required\nno mean effort of genius, the substantives for a time were only so\nmany proper names, the infinitive was the only tense, and as to\nadjectives, great difficulties must have attended the development of\nthe idea that represents them, since every adjective is an abstract\nword, and abstraction is an unnatural and very painful operation.\n\nAt first they gave every object a peculiar name, without any regard to\nits genus or species, things which these first institutors of language\nwere in no condition to distinguish; and every individual presented\nitself solitary to their minds, as it stands in the table of nature.\nIf they called one oak A, they called another oak B: so that their\ndictionary must have been more extensive in proportion as their\nknowledge of things was more confined. It could not but be a very\ndifficult task to get rid of so diffuse and embarrassing a\nnomenclature; as in order to marshal the several beings under common\nand generic denominations, it was necessary to be first acquainted\nwith their properties, and their differences; to be stocked with\nobservations and definitions, that is to say, to understand natural\nhistory and metaphysics, advantages which the men of these times could\nnot have enjoyed.\n\nBesides, general ideas cannot be conveyed to the mind without the\nassistance of words, nor can the understanding seize them without the\nassistance of propositions. This is one of the reasons, why mere\nanimals cannot form such ideas, nor ever acquire the perfectibility\nwhich depends on such an operation. When a monkey leaves without the\nleast hesitation one nut for another, are we to think he has any\ngeneral idea of that kind of fruit, and that he compares these two\nindividual bodies with his archetype notion of them? No, certainly;\nbut the sight of one of these nuts calls back to his memory the\nsensations which he has received from the other; and his eyes,\nmodified after some certain manner, give notice to his palate of the\nmodification it is in its turn going to receive. Every general idea is\npurely intellectual; let the imagination tamper ever so little with\nit, it immediately becomes a particular idea. Endeavour to represent\nto yourself the image of a tree in general, you never will be able to\ndo it; in spite of all your efforts it will appear big or little, thin\nor tufted, of a bright or a deep colour; and were you master to see\nnothing in it, but what can be seen in every tree, such a picture\nwould no longer resemble any tree. Beings perfectly abstract are\nperceivable in the same manner, or are only conceivable by the\nassistance of speech. The definition of a triangle can alone give you\na just idea of that figure: the moment you form a triangle in your\nmind, it is this or that particular triangle and no other, and you\ncannot avoid giving breadth to its lines and colour to its area. We\nmust therefore make use of propositions; we must therefore speak to\nhave general ideas; for the moment the imagination stops, the mind\nmust stop too, if not assisted by speech. If therefore the first\ninventors could give no names to any ideas but those they had already,\nit follows that the first substantives could never have been anything\nmore than proper names.\n\nBut when by means, which I cannot conceive, our new grammarians began\nto extend their ideas, and generalize their words, the ignorance of\nthe inventors must have confined this method to very narrow bounds;\nand as they had at first too much multiplied the names of individuals\nfor want of being acquainted with the distinctions called genus and\nspecies, they afterwards made too few genera and species for want of\nhaving considered beings in all their differences; to push the\ndivisions far enough, they must have had more knowledge and experience\nthan we can allow them, and have made more researches and taken more\npains, than we can suppose them willing to submit to. Now if, even at\nthis present time, we every day discover new species, which had before\nescaped all our observations, how many species must have escaped the\nnotice of men, who judged of things merely from their first\nappearances! As to the primitive classes and the most general notions,\nit were superfluous to add that these they must have likewise\noverlooked: how, for example, could they have thought of or understood\nthe words, matter, spirit, substance, mode, figure, motion, since even\nour philosophers, who for so long a time have been constantly\nemploying these terms, can themselves scarcely understand them, and\nsince the ideas annexed to these words being purely metaphysical, no\nmodels of them could be found in nature?\n\nI stop at these first advances, and beseech my judges to suspend their\nlecture a little, in order to consider, what a great way language has\nstill to go, in regard to the invention of physical substantives\nalone, (though the easiest part of language to invent,) to be able to\nexpress all the sentiments of man, to assume an invariable form, to\nbear being spoken in public and to influence society: I earnestly\nentreat them to consider how much time and knowledge must have been\nrequisite to find out numbers, abstract words, the aorists, and all\nthe other tenses of verbs, the particles, and syntax, the method of\nconnecting propositions and arguments, of forming all the logic of\ndiscourse. For my own part, I am so scared at the difficulties that\nmultiply at every step, and so convinced of the almost demonstrated\nimpossibility of languages owing their birth and establishment to\nmeans that were merely human, that I must leave to whoever may please\nto take it up, the task of discussing this difficult problem. \"Which\nwas the most necessary, society already formed to invent languages, or\nlanguages already invented to form society?\"\n\nBut be the case of these origins ever so mysterious, we may at least\ninfer from the little care which nature has taken to bring men\ntogether by mutual wants, and make the use of speech easy to them, how\nlittle she has done towards making them sociable, and how little she\nhas contributed to anything which they themselves have done to become\nso. In fact, it is impossible to conceive, why, in this primitive\nstate, one man should have more occasion for the assistance of\nanother, than one monkey, or one wolf for that of another animal of\nthe same species; or supposing that he had, what motive could induce\nanother to assist him; or even, in this last case, how he, who wanted\nassistance, and he from whom it was wanted, could agree among\nthemselves upon the conditions. Authors, I know, are continually\ntelling us, that in this state man would have been a most miserable\ncreature; and if it is true, as I fancy I have proved it, that he must\nhave continued many ages without either the desire or the opportunity\nof emerging from such a state, this their assertion could only serve\nto justify a charge against nature, and not any against the being\nwhich nature had thus constituted; but, if I thoroughly understand\nthis term miserable, it is a word, that either has no meaning, or\nsignifies nothing, but a privation attended with pain, and a suffering\nstate of body or soul; now I would fain know what kind of misery can\nbe that of a free being, whose heart enjoys perfect peace, and body\nperfect health? And which is aptest to become insupportable to those\nwho enjoy it, a civil or a natural life? In civil life we can scarcely\nmeet a single person who does not complain of his existence; many even\nthrow away as much of it as they can, and the united force of divine\nand human laws can hardly put bounds to this disorder. Was ever any\nfree savage known to have been so much as tempted to complain of life,\nand lay violent hands on himself? Let us therefore judge with less\npride on which side real misery is to be placed. Nothing, on the\ncontrary, must have been so unhappy as savage man, dazzled by flashes\nof knowledge, racked by passions, and reasoning on a state different\nfrom that in which he saw himself placed. It was in consequence of a\nvery wise Providence, that the faculties, which he potentially\nenjoyed, were not to develop themselves but in proportion as there\noffered occasions to exercise them, lest they should be superfluous or\ntroublesome to him when he did not want them, or tardy and useless\nwhen he did. He had in his instinct alone everything requisite to live\nin a state of nature; in his cultivated reason he has barely what is\nnecessary to live in a state of society.\n\nIt appears at first sight that, as there was no kind of moral\nrelations between men in this state, nor any known duties, they could\nnot be either good or bad, and had neither vices nor virtues, unless\nwe take these words in a physical sense, and call vices, in the\nindividual, the qualities which may prove detrimental to his own\npreservation, and virtues those which may contribute to it; in which\ncase we should be obliged to consider him as most virtuous, who made\nleast resistance against the simple impulses of nature. But without\ndeviating from the usual meaning of these terms, it is proper to\nsuspend the judgment we might form of such a situation, and be upon\nour guard against prejudice, till, the balance in hand, we have\nexamined whether there are more virtues or vices among civilized men;\nor whether the improvement of their understanding is sufficient to\ncompensate the damage which they mutually do to each other, in\nproportion as they become better informed of the services which they\nought to do; or whether, upon the whole, they would not be much\nhappier in a condition, where they had nothing to fear or to hope from\neach other, than in that where they had submitted to an universal\nsubserviency, and have obliged themselves to depend for everything\nupon the good will of those, who do not think themselves obliged to\ngive anything in return.\n\nBut above all things let us beware concluding with Hobbes, that man,\nas having no idea of goodness, must be naturally bad; that he is\nvicious because he does not know what virtue is; that he always\nrefuses to do any service to those of his own species, because he\nbelieves that none is due to them; that, in virtue of that right which\nhe justly claims to everything he wants, he foolishly looks upon\nhimself as proprietor of the whole universe. Hobbes very plainly saw\nthe flaws in all the modern definitions of natural right: but the\nconsequences, which he draws from his own definition, show that it is,\nin the sense he understands it, equally exceptionable. This author, to\nargue from his own principles, should say that the state of nature,\nbeing that where the care of our own preservation interferes least\nwith the preservation of others, was of course the most favourable to\npeace, and most suitable to mankind; whereas he advances the very\nreverse in consequence of his having injudiciously admitted, as\nobjects of that care which savage man should take of his preservation,\nthe satisfaction of numberless passions which are the work of society,\nand have rendered laws necessary. A bad man, says he, is a robust\nchild. But this is not proving that savage man is a robust child; and\nthough we were to grant that he was, what could this philosopher infer\nfrom such a concession? That if this man, when robust, depended on\nothers as much as when feeble, there is no excess that he would not be\nguilty of. He would make nothing of striking his mother when she\ndelayed ever so little to give him the breast; he would claw, and\nbite, and strangle without remorse the first of his younger brothers,\nthat ever so accidentally jostled or otherwise disturbed him. But\nthese are two contradictory suppositions in the state of nature, to be\nrobust and dependent. Man is weak when dependent, and his own master\nbefore he grows robust. Hobbes did not consider that the same cause,\nwhich hinders savages from making use of their reason, as our\njurisconsults pretend, hinders them at the same time from making an\nill use of their faculties, as he himself pretends; so that we may say\nthat savages are not bad, precisely because they don't know what it is\nto be good; for it is neither the development of the understanding,\nnor the curb of the law, but the calmness of their passions and their\nignorance of vice that hinders them from doing ill: _tantus plus in\nillis proficit vitiorum ignorantia, quam in his cognito virtutis_.\nThere is besides another principle that has escaped Hobbes, and which,\nhaving been given to man to moderate, on certain occasions, the blind\nand impetuous sallies of self-love, or the desire of self-preservation\nprevious to the appearance of that passion, allays the ardour, with\nwhich he naturally pursues his private welfare, by an innate\nabhorrence to see beings suffer that resemble him. I shall not surely\nbe contradicted, in granting to man the only natural virtue, which the\nmost passionate detractor of human virtues could not deny him, I mean\nthat of pity, a disposition suitable to creatures weak as we are, and\nliable to so many evils; a virtue so much the more universal, and\nwithal useful to man, as it takes place in him of all manner of\nreflection; and so natural, that the beasts themselves sometimes give\nevident signs of it. Not to speak of the tenderness of mothers for\ntheir young; and of the dangers they face to screen them from danger;\nwith what reluctance are horses known to trample upon living bodies;\none animal never passes unmoved by the dead carcass of another animal\nof the same species: there are even some who bestow a kind of\nsepulture upon their dead fellows; and the mournful lowings of cattle,\non their entering the slaughter-house, publish the impression made\nupon them by the horrible spectacle they are there struck with. It is\nwith pleasure we see the author of the fable of the bees, forced to\nacknowledge man a compassionate and sensible being; and lay aside, in\nthe example he offers to confirm it, his cold and subtle style, to\nplace before us the pathetic picture of a man, who, with his hands\ntied up, is obliged to behold a beast of prey tear a child from the\narms of his mother, and then with his teeth grind the tender limbs,\nand with his claws rend the throbbing entrails of the innocent victim.\nWhat horrible emotions must not such a spectator experience at the\nsight of an event which does not personally concern him? What anguish\nmust he not suffer at his not being able to assist the fainting mother\nor the expiring infant?\n\nSuch is the pure motion of nature, anterior to all manner of\nreflection; such is the force of natural pity, which the most\ndissolute manners have as yet found it so difficult to extinguish,\nsince we every day see, in our theatrical representation, those men\nsympathize with the unfortunate and weep at their sufferings, who, if\nin the tyrant's place, would aggravate the torments of their enemies.\nMandeville was very sensible that men, in spite of all their morality,\nwould never have been better than monsters, if nature had not given\nthem pity to assist reason: but he did not perceive that from this\nquality alone flow all the social virtues, which he would dispute\nmankind the possession of. In fact, what is generosity, what clemency,\nwhat humanity, but pity applied to the weak, to the guilty, or to the\nhuman species in general? Even benevolence and friendship, if we judge\nright, will appear the effects of a constant pity, fixed upon a\nparticular object: for to wish that a person may not suffer, what is\nit but to wish that he may be happy? Though it were true that\ncommiseration is no more than a sentiment, which puts us in the place\nof him who suffers, a sentiment obscure but active in the savage,\ndeveloped but dormant in civilized man, how could this notion affect\nthe truth of what I advance, but to make it more evident. In fact,\ncommiseration must be so much the more energetic, the more intimately\nthe animal, that beholds any kind of distress, identifies himself with\nthe animal that labours under it. Now it is evident that this\nidentification must have been infinitely more perfect in the state of\nnature than in the state of reason. It is reason that engenders\nself-love, and reflection that strengthens it; it is reason that makes\nman shrink into himself; it is reason that makes him keep aloof from\neverything that can trouble or afflict him: it is philosophy that\ndestroys his connections with other men; it is in consequence of her\ndictates that he mutters to himself at the sight of another in\ndistress, You may perish for aught I care, nothing can hurt me.\nNothing less than those evils, which threaten the whole species, can\ndisturb the calm sleep of the philosopher, and force him from his bed.\nOne man may with impunity murder another under his windows; he has\nnothing to do but clap his hands to his ears, argue a little with\nhimself to hinder nature, that startles within him, from identifying\nhim with the unhappy sufferer. Savage man wants this admirable talent;\nand for want of wisdom and reason, is always ready foolishly to obey\nthe first whispers of humanity. In riots and street-brawls the\npopulace flock together, the prudent man sneaks off. They are the\ndregs of the people, the poor basket and barrow-women, that part the\ncombatants, and hinder gentle folks from cutting one another's\nthroats.\n\nIt is therefore certain that pity is a natural sentiment, which, by\nmoderating in every individual the activity of self-love, contributes\nto the mutual preservation of the whole species. It is this pity\nwhich hurries us without reflection to the assistance of those we see\nin distress; it is this pity which, in a state of nature, stands for\nlaws, for manners, for virtue, with this advantage, that no one is\ntempted to disobey her sweet and gentle voice: it is this pity which\nwill always hinder a robust savage from plundering a feeble child, or\ninfirm old man, of the subsistence they have acquired with pain and\ndifficulty, if he has but the least prospect of providing for himself\nby any other means: it is this pity which, instead of that sublime\nmaxim of argumentative justice, Do to others as you would have others\ndo to you, inspires all men with that other maxim of natural goodness\na great deal less perfect, but perhaps more useful, Consult your own\nhappiness with as little prejudice as you can to that of others. It is\nin a word, in this natural sentiment, rather than in fine-spun\narguments, that we must look for the cause of that reluctance which\nevery man would experience to do evil, even independently of the\nmaxims of education. Though it may be the peculiar happiness of\nSocrates and other geniuses of his stamp, to reason themselves into\nvirtue, the human species would long ago have ceased to exist, had it\ndepended entirely for its preservation on the reasonings of the\nindividuals that compose it.\n\nWith passions so tame, and so salutary a curb, men, rather wild than\nwicked, and more attentive to guard against mischief than to do any to\nother animals, were not exposed to any dangerous dissensions: As they\nkept up no manner of correspondence with each other, and were of\ncourse strangers to vanity, to respect, to esteem, to contempt; as\nthey had no notion of what we call Meum and Tuum, nor any true idea of\njustice; as they considered any violence they were liable to, as an\nevil that could be easily repaired, and not as an injury that deserved\npunishment; and as they never so much as dreamed of revenge, unless\nperhaps mechanically and unpremeditatedly, as a dog who bites the\nstone that has been thrown at him; their disputes could seldom be\nattended with bloodshed, were they never occasioned by a more\nconsiderable stake than that of subsistence: but there is a more\ndangerous subject of contention, which I must not leave unnoticed.\n\nAmong the passions which ruffle the heart of man, there is one of a\nhot and impetuous nature, which renders the sexes necessary to each\nother; a terrible passion which despises all dangers, bears down all\nobstacles, and to which in its transports it seems proper to destroy\nthe human species which it is destined to preserve. What must become\nof men abandoned to this lawless and brutal rage, without modesty,\nwithout shame, and every day disputing the objects of their passion at\nthe expense of their blood?\n\nWe must in the first place allow that the more violent the passions,\nthe more necessary are laws to restrain them: but besides that the\ndisorders and the crimes, to which these passions daily give rise\namong us, sufficiently grove the insufficiency of laws for that\npurpose, we would do well to look back a little further and examine,\nif these evils did not spring up with the laws themselves; for at this\nrate, though the laws were capable of repressing these evils, it is\nthe least that might be expected from them, seeing it is no more than\nstopping the progress of a mischief which they themselves have\nproduced.\n\nLet us begin by distinguishing between what is moral and what is\nphysical in the passion called love. The physical part of it is that\ngeneral desire which prompts the sexes to unite with each other; the\nmoral part is that which determines that desire, and fixes it upon a\nparticular object to the exclusion of all others, or at least gives it\na greater degree of energy for this preferred object. Now it is easy\nto perceive that the moral part of love is a factitious sentiment,\nengendered by society, and cried up by the women with great care and\naddress in order to establish their empire, and secure command to that\nsex which ought to obey. This sentiment, being founded on certain\nnotions of beauty and merit which a savage is not capable of having,\nand upon comparisons which he is not capable of making, can scarcely\nexist in him: for as his mind was never in a condition to form\nabstract ideas of regularity and proportion, neither is his heart\nsusceptible of sentiments of admiration and love, which, even without\nour perceiving it, are produced by our application of these ideas; he\nlistens solely to the dispositions implanted in him by nature, and not\nto taste which he never was in a way of acquiring; and every woman\nanswers his purpose.\n\nConfined entirely to what is physical in love, and happy enough not to\nknow these preferences which sharpen the appetite for it, at the same\ntime that they increase the difficulty of satisfying such appetite,\nmen, in a state of nature, must be subject to fewer and less violent\nfits of that passion, and of course there must be fewer and less\nviolent disputes among them in consequence of it. The imagination\nwhich causes so many ravages among us, never speaks to the heart of\nsavages, who peaceably wait for the impulses of nature, yield to these\nimpulses without choice and with more pleasure than fury; and whose\ndesires never outlive their necessity for the thing desired.\n\nNothing therefore can be more evident, than that it is society alone,\nwhich has added even to love itself as well as to all the other\npassions, that impetuous ardour, which so often renders it fatal to\nmankind; and it is so much the more ridiculous to represent savages\nconstantly murdering each other to glut their brutality, as this\nopinion is diametrically opposite to experience, and the Caribbeans,\nthe people in the world who have as yet deviated least from the state\nof nature, are to all intents and purposes the most peaceable in their\namours, and the least subject to jealousy, though they live in a\nburning climate which seems always to add considerably to the activity\nof these passions.\n\nAs to the inductions which may be drawn, in respect to several species\nof animals, from the battles of the males, who in all seasons cover\nour poultry yards with blood, and in spring particularly cause our\nforests to ring again with the noise they make in disputing their\nfemales, we must begin by excluding all those species, where nature\nhas evidently established, in the relative power of the sexes,\nrelations different from those which exist among us: thus from the\nbattle of cocks we can form no induction that will affect the human\nspecies. In the species, where the proportion is better observed,\nthese battles must be owing entirely to the fewness of the females\ncompared with the males, or, which is all one, to the exclusive\nintervals, during which the females constantly refuse the addresses of\nthe males; for if the female admits the male but two months in the\nyear, it is all the same as if the number of females were five-sixths\nless than what it is: now neither of these cases is applicable to the\nhuman species, where the number of females generally surpasses that of\nmales, and where it has never been observed that, even among savages,\nthe females had, like those of other animals, stated times of passion\nand indifference, Besides, among several of these animals the whole\nspecies takes fire all at once, and for some days nothing is, to be\nseen among them but confusion, tumult, disorder and bloodshed; a state\nunknown to the human species where love is never periodical. We can\nnot therefore conclude from the battles of certain animals for the\npossession of their females, that the same would be the case of man in\na state of nature; and though we might, as these contests do not\ndestroy the other species, there is at least equal room to think they\nwould not be fatal to ours; nay it is very probable that they would\ncause fewer ravages than they do in society, especially in those\ncountries where, morality being as yet held in some esteem, the\njealousy of lovers, and the vengeance of husbands every day produce\nduels, murders and even worse crimes; where the duty of an eternal\nfidelity serves only to propagate adultery; and the very laws of\ncontinence and honour necessarily contribute to increase\ndissoluteness, and multiply abortions.\n\nLet us conclude that savage man, wandering about in the forests,\nwithout industry, without speech, without any fixed residence, an\nequal stranger to war and every social connection, without standing in\nany shape in need of his fellows, as well as without any desire of\nhurting them, and perhaps even without ever distinguishing them\nindividually one from the other, subject to few passions, and finding\nin himself all he wants, let us, I say, conclude that savage man thus\ncircumstanced had no knowledge or sentiment but such as are proper to\nthat condition, that he was alone sensible of his real necessities,\ntook notice of nothing but what it was his interest to see, and that\nhis understanding made as little progress as his vanity. If he\nhappened to make any discovery, he could the less communicate it as he\ndid not even know his children. The art perished with the inventor;\nthere was neither education nor improvement; generations succeeded\ngenerations to no purpose; and as all constantly set out from the same\npoint, whole centuries rolled on in the rudeness and barbarity of the\nfirst age; the species was grown old, while the individual still\nremained in a state of childhood.\n\nIf I have enlarged so much upon the supposition of this primitive\ncondition, it is because I thought it my duty, considering what\nancient errors and inveterate prejudices I have to extirpate, to dig\nto the very roots, and show in a true picture of the state of nature,\nhow much even natural inequality falls short in this state of that\nreality and influence which our writers ascribe to it.\n\nIn fact, we may easily perceive that among the differences, which\ndistinguish men, several pass for natural, which are merely the work\nof habit and the different kinds of life adopted by men living in a\nsocial way. Thus a robust or delicate constitution, and the strength\nand weakness which depend on it, are oftener produced by the hardy or\neffeminate manner in which a man has been brought up, than by the\nprimitive constitution of his body. It is the same thus in regard to\nthe forces of the mind; and education not only produces a difference\nbetween those minds which are cultivated and those which are not, but\neven increases that which is found among the first in proportion to\ntheir culture; for let a giant and a dwarf set out in the same path,\nthe giant at every step will acquire a new advantage over the dwarf.\nNow, if we compare the prodigious variety in the education and manner\nof living of the different orders of men in a civil state, with the\nsimplicity and uniformity that prevails in the animal and savage life,\nwhere all the individuals make use of the same aliments, live in the\nsame manner, and do exactly the same things, we shall easily conceive\nhow much the difference between man and man in the state of nature\nmust be less than in the state of society, and how much every\ninequality of institution must increase the natural inequalities of\nthe human species.\n\nBut though nature in the distribution of her gifts should really\naffect all the preferences that are ascribed to her, what advantage\ncould the most favoured derive from her partiality, to the prejudice\nof others, in a state of things, which scarce admitted any kind of\nrelation between her pupils? Of what service can beauty be, where\nthere is no love? What will wit avail people who don't speak, or craft\nthose who have no affairs to transact? Authors are constantly crying\nout, that the strongest would oppress the weakest; but let them\nexplain what they mean by the word oppression. One man will rule with\nviolence, another will groan under a constant subjection to all his\ncaprices: this is indeed precisely what I observe among us, but I\ndon't see how it can be said of savage men, into whose heads it would\nbe a harder matter to drive even the meaning of the words domination\nand servitude. One man might, indeed, seize on the fruits which\nanother had gathered, on the game which another had killed, on the\ncavern which another had occupied for shelter; but how is it possible\nhe should ever exact obedience from him, and what chains of dependence\ncan there be among men who possess nothing? If I am driven from one\ntree, I have nothing to do but look out for another; if one place is\nmade uneasy to me, what can hinder me from taking up my quarters\nelsewhere? But suppose I should meet a man so much superior to me in\nstrength, and withal so wicked, so lazy and so barbarous as to oblige\nme to provide for his subsistence while he remains idle; he must\nresolve not to take his eyes from me a single moment, to bind me fast\nbefore he can take the least nap, lest I should kill him or give him\nthe slip during his sleep: that is to say, he must expose himself\nvoluntarily to much greater troubles than what he seeks to avoid, than\nany he gives me. And after all, let him abate ever so little of his\nvigilance; let him at some sudden noise but turn his head another way;\nI am already buried in the forest, my fetters are broke, and he never\nsees me again.\n\nBut without insisting any longer upon these details, every one must\nsee that, as the bonds of servitude are formed merely by the mutual\ndependence of men one upon another and the reciprocal necessities\nwhich unite them, it is impossible for one man to enslave another,\nwithout having first reduced him to a condition in which he can not\nlive without the enslaver's assistance; a condition which, as it does\nnot exist in a state of nature, must leave every man his own master,\nand render the law of the strongest altogether vain and useless.\n\nHaving proved that the inequality, which may subsist between man and\nman in a state of nature, is almost imperceivable, and that it has\nvery little influence, I must now proceed to show its origin, and\ntrace its progress, in the successive developments of the human mind.\nAfter having showed, that perfectibility, the social virtues, and the\nother faculties, which natural man had received _in potentia_, could\nnever be developed of themselves, that for that purpose there was a\nnecessity for the fortuitous concurrence of several foreign causes,\nwhich might never happen, and without which he must have eternally\nremained in his primitive condition; I must proceed to consider and\nbring together the different accidents which may have perfected the\nhuman understanding by debasing the species, render a being wicked by\nrendering him sociable, and from so remote a term bring man at last\nand the world to the point in which we now see them.\n\nI must own that, as the events I am about to describe might have\nhappened many different ways, my choice of these I shall assign can be\ngrounded on nothing but mere conjecture; but besides these conjectures\nbecoming reasons, when they are not only the most probable that can be\ndrawn from the nature of things, but the only means we can have of\ndiscovering truth, the consequences I mean to deduce from mine will\nnot be merely conjectural, since, on the principles I have just\nestablished, it is impossible to form any other system, that would not\nsupply me with the same results, and from which I might not draw the\nsame conclusions.\n\nThis will authorize me to be the more concise in my reflections on the\nmanner, in which the lapse of time makes amends for the little\nverisimilitude of events; on the surprising power of very trivial\ncauses, when they act without intermission; on the impossibility there\nis on the one hand of destroying certain Hypotheses, if on the other\nwe can not give them the degree of certainty which facts must be\nallowed to possess; on its being the business of history, when two\nfacts are proposed, as real, to be connected by a chain of\nintermediate facts which are either unknown or considered as such, to\nfurnish such facts as may actually connect them; and the business of\nphilosophy, when history is silent, to point out similar facts which\nmay answer the same purpose; in fine on the privilege of similitude,\nin regard to events, to reduce facts to a much smaller number of\ndifferent classes than is generally imagined. It suffices me to offer\nthese objects to the consideration of my judges; it suffices me to\nhave conducted my inquiry in such a manner as to save common readers\nthe trouble of considering them.\n\n\n\n\nSECOND PART\n\nThe first man, who, after enclosing a piece of ground, took it into\nhis head to say, \"This is mine,\" and found people simple enough to\nbelieve him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes,\nhow many wars, how many murders, how many misfortunes and horrors,\nwould that man have saved the human species, who pulling up the stakes\nor filling up the ditches should have cried to his fellows: Be sure\nnot to listen to this imposter; you are lost, if you forget that the\nfruits of the earth belong equally to us all, and the earth itself to\nnobody! But it is highly probable that things were now come to such a\npass, that they could not continue much longer in the same way; for as\nthis idea of property depends on several prior ideas which could only\nspring up gradually one after another, it was not formed all at once\nin the human mind: men must have made great progress; they must have\nacquired a great stock of industry and knowledge, and transmitted and\nincreased it from age to age before they could arrive at this last\nterm of the state of nature. Let us therefore take up things a little\nhigher, and collect into one point of view, and in their most natural\norder, this slow succession of events and mental improvements.\n\nThe first sentiment of man was that of his existence, his first care\nthat of preserving it. The productions of the earth yielded him all\nthe assistance he required; instinct prompted him to make use of them.\nAmong the various appetites, which made him at different times\nexperience different modes of existence, there was one that excited\nhim to perpetuate his species; and this blind propensity, quite void\nof anything like pure love or affection, produced nothing but an act\nthat was merely animal. The present heat once allayed, the sexes took\nno further notice of each other, and even the child ceased to have any\ntie in his mother, the moment he ceased to want her assistance.\n\nSuch was the condition of infant man; such was the life of an animal\nconfined at first to pure sensations, and so far from harbouring any\nthought of forcing her gifts from nature, that he scarcely availed\nhimself of those which she offered to him of her own accord. But\ndifficulties soon arose, and there was a necessity for learning how to\nsurmount them: the height of some trees, which prevented his reaching\ntheir fruits; the competition of other animals equally fond of the\nsame fruits; the fierceness of many that even aimed at his life; these\nwere so many circumstances, which obliged him to apply to bodily\nexercise. There was a necessity for becoming active, swift-footed, and\nsturdy in battle. The natural arms, which are stones and the branches\nof trees, soon offered themselves to his assistance. He learned to\nsurmount the obstacles of nature, to contend in case of necessity with\nother animals, to dispute his subsistence even with other men, or\nindemnify himself for the loss of whatever he found himself obliged to\npart with to the strongest.\n\nIn proportion as the human species grew more numerous, and extended\nitself, its pains likewise multiplied and increased. The difference\nof soils, climates and seasons, might have forced men to observe some\ndifference in their way of living. Bad harvests, long and severe\nwinters, and scorching summers which parched up all the fruits of the\nearth, required extraordinary exertions of industry. On the sea shore,\nand the banks of rivers, they invented the line and the hook, and\nbecame fishermen and ichthyophagous. In the forests they made\nthemselves bows and arrows, and became huntsmen and warriors. In the\ncold countries they covered themselves with the skins of the beasts\nthey had killed; thunder, a volcano, or some happy accident made them\nacquainted with fire, a new resource against the rigours of winter:\nthey discovered the method of preserving this element, then that of\nreproducing it, and lastly the way of preparing with it the flesh of\nanimals, which heretofore they devoured raw from the carcass.\n\nThis reiterated application of various beings to himself, and to one\nanother, must have naturally engendered in the mind of man the idea of\ncertain relations. These relations, which we express by the words,\ngreat, little, strong, weak, swift, slow, fearful, bold, and the like,\ncompared occasionally, and almost without thinking of it, produced in\nhim some kind of reflection, or rather a mechanical prudence, which\npointed out to him the precautions most essential to his preservation\nand safety.\n\nThe new lights resulting from this development increased his\nsuperiority over other animals, by making him sensible of it. He laid\nhimself out to ensnare them; he played them a thousand tricks; and\nthough several surpassed him in strength or in swiftness, he in time\nbecame the master of those that could be of any service to him, and a\nsore enemy to those that could do him any mischief. 'Tis thus, that\nthe first look he gave into himself produced the first emotion of\npride in him; 'tis thus that, at a time he scarce knew how to\ndistinguish between the different ranks of existence, by attributing\nto his species the first rank among animals in general, he prepared\nhimself at a distance to pretend to it as an individual among those of\nhis own species in particular.\n\nThough other men were not to him what they are to us, and he had\nscarce more intercourse with them than with other animals, they were\nnot overlooked in his observations. The conformities, which in time\nhe might discover between them, and between himself and his female,\nmade him judge of those he did not perceive; and seeing that they all\nbehaved as himself would have done in similar circumstances, he\nconcluded that their manner of thinking and willing was quite\nconformable to his own; and this important truth, when once engraved\ndeeply on his mind, made him follow, by a presentiment as sure as any\nlogic, and withal much quicker, the best rules of conduct, which for\nthe sake of his own safety and advantage it was proper he should\nobserve towards them.\n\nInstructed by experience that the love of happiness is the sole\nprinciple of all human actions, he found himself in a condition to\ndistinguish the few cases, in which common interest might authorize\nhim to build upon the assistance of his fellows, and those still\nfewer, in which a competition of interests might justly render it\nsuspected. In the first case he united with them in the same flock, or\nat most by some kind of free association which obliged none of its\nmembers, and lasted no longer than the transitory necessity that had\ngiven birth to it. In the second case every one aimed at his own\nprivate advantage, either by open force if he found himself strong\nenough, or by cunning and address if he thought himself too weak to\nuse violence.\n\nSuch was the manner in which men might have insensibly acquired some\ngross idea of their mutual engagements and the advantage of fulfilling\nthem, but this only as far as their present and sensible interest\nrequired; for as to foresight they were utter strangers to it, and far\nfrom troubling their heads about a distant futurity, they scarce\nthought of the day following. Was a deer to be taken? Every one saw\nthat to succeed he must faithfully stand to his post; but suppose a\nhare to have slipped by within reach of any one of them, it is not to\nbe doubted but he pursued it without scruple, and when he had seized\nhis prey never reproached himself with having made his companions miss\ntheirs.\n\nWe may easily conceive that such an intercourse scarce required a more\nrefined language than that of crows and monkeys, which flock together\nalmost in the same manner. Inarticulate exclamations, a great many\ngestures, and some imitative sounds, must have been for a long time\nthe universal language of mankind, and by joining to these in every\ncountry some articulate and conventional sounds, of which, as I have\nalready hinted, it is not very easy to explain the institution, there\narose particular languages, but rude, imperfect, and such nearly as\nare to be found at this day among several savage nations. My pen\nstraightened by the rapidity of time, the abundance of things I have\nto say, and the almost insensible progress of the first improvements,\nflies like an arrow over numberless ages, for the slower the\nsuccession of events, the quicker I may allow myself to be in relating\nthem.\n\nAt length, these first improvements enabled man to improve at a\ngreater rate. Industry grew perfect in proportion as the mind became\nmore enlightened. Men soon ceasing to fall asleep under the first\ntree, or take shelter in the first cavern, lit upon some hard and\nsharp kinds of stone resembling spades or hatchets, and employed them\nto dig the ground, cut down trees, and with the branches build huts,\nwhich they afterwards bethought themselves of plastering over with\nclay or dirt. This was the epoch of a first revolution, which produced\nthe establishment and distinction of families, and which introduced a\nspecies of property, and along with it perhaps a thousand quarrels and\nbattles. As the strongest however were probably the first to make\nthemselves cabins, which they knew they were able to defend, we may\nconclude that the weak found it much shorter and safer to imitate than\nto attempt to dislodge them: and as to those, who were already\nprovided with cabins, no one could have any great temptation to seize\nupon that of his neighbour, not so much because it did not belong to\nhim, as because it could be of no service to him; and as besides to\nmake himself master of it, he must expose himself to a very sharp\nconflict with the present occupiers.\n\nThe first developments of the heart were the effects of a new\nsituation, which united husbands and wives, parents and children,\nunder one roof; the habit of living together gave birth to the\nsweetest sentiments the human species is acquainted with, conjugal and\npaternal love. Every family became a little society, so much the more\nfirmly united, as a mutual attachment and liberty were the only bonds\nof it; and it was now that the sexes, whose way of life had been\nhitherto the same, began to adopt different manners and customs. The\nwomen became more sedentary, and accustomed themselves to stay at home\nand look after the children, while the men rambled abroad in quest of\nsubsistence for the whole family. The two sexes likewise by living a\nlittle more at their ease began to lose somewhat of their usual\nferocity and sturdiness; but if on the one hand individuals became\nless able to engage separately with wild beasts, they on the other\nwere more easily got together to make a common resistance against\nthem.\n\nIn this new state of things, the simplicity and solitariness of man's\nlife, the limitedness of his wants, and the instruments which he had\ninvented to satisfy them, leaving him a great deal of leisure, he\nemployed it to supply himself with several conveniences unknown to his\nancestors; and this was the first yoke he inadvertently imposed upon\nhimself, and the first source of mischief which he prepared for his\nchildren; for besides continuing in this manner to soften both body\nand mind, these conveniences having through use lost almost all their\naptness to please, and even degenerated into real wants, the privation\nof them became far more intolerable than the possession of them had\nbeen agreeable; to lose them was a misfortune, to possess them no\nhappiness.\n\nHere we may a little better discover how the use of speech insensibly\ncommences or improves in the bosom of every family, and may likewise\nfrom conjectures concerning the manner in which divers particular\ncauses might have propagated language, and accelerated its progress by\nrendering it every day more and more necessary. Great inundations or\nearthquakes surrounded inhabited districts with water or precipices,\nportions of the continent were by revolutions of the globe torn off\nand split into islands. It is obvious that among men thus collected,\nand forced to live together, a common idiom must have started up much\nsooner, than among those who freely wandered through the forests of\nthe main land. Thus it is very possible that the inhabitants of the\nislands formed in this manner, after their first essays in navigation,\nbrought among us the use of speech; and it is very probable at least\nthat society and languages commenced in islands and even acquired\nperfection there, before the inhabitants of the continent knew\nanything of either.\n\nEverything now begins to wear a new aspect. Those who heretofore\nwandered through the woods, by taking to a more settled way of life,\ngradually flock together, coalesce into several separate bodies, and\nat length form in every country distinct nations, united in character\nand manners, not by any laws or regulations, but by an uniform manner\nof life, a sameness of provisions, and the common influence of the\nclimate. A permanent neighborhood must at last infallibly create some\nconnection between different families. The transitory commerce\nrequired by nature soon produced, among the youth of both sexes living\nin contiguous cabins, another kind of commerce, which besides being\nequally agreeable is rendered more durable by mutual intercourse. Men\nbegin to consider different objects, and to make comparisons; they\ninsensibly acquire ideas of merit and beauty, and these soon produce\nsentiments of preference. By seeing each other often they contract a\nhabit, which makes it painful not to see each other always. Tender and\nagreeable sentiments steal into the soul, and are by the smallest\nopposition wound up into the most impetuous fury: Jealousy kindles\nwith love; discord triumphs; and the gentlest of passions requires\nsacrifices of human blood to appease it.\n\nIn proportion as ideas and sentiments succeed each other, and the head\nand the heart exercise themselves, men continue to shake off their\noriginal wildness, and their connections become more intimate and\nextensive. They now begin to assemble round a great tree: singing and\ndancing, the genuine offspring of love and leisure, become the\namusement or rather the occupation of the men and women, free from\ncare, thus gathered together. Every one begins to survey the rest, and\nwishes to be surveyed himself; and public esteem acquires a value. He\nwho sings or dances best; the handsomest, the strongest, the most\ndexterous, the most eloquent, comes to be the most respected: this was\nthe first step towards inequality, and at the same time towards vice.\nFrom these first preferences there proceeded on one side vanity and\ncontempt, on the other envy and shame; and the fermentation raised by\nthese new leavens at length produced combinations fatal to happiness\nand innocence.\n\nMen no sooner began to set a value upon each other, and know what\nesteem was, than each laid claim to it, and it was no longer safe for\nany man to refuse it to another. Hence the first duties of civility\nand politeness, even among savages; and hence every voluntary injury\nbecame an affront, as besides the mischief, which resulted from it as\nan injury, the party offended was sure to find in it a contempt for\nhis person more intolerable than the mischief itself. It was thus that\nevery man, punishing the contempt expressed for him by others in\nproportion to the value he set upon himself, the effects of revenge\nbecame terrible, and men learned to be sanguinary and cruel. Such\nprecisely was the degree attained by most of the savage nations with\nwhom we are acquainted. And it is for want of sufficiently\ndistinguishing ideas, and observing at how great a distance these\npeople were from the first state of nature, that so many authors have\nhastily concluded that man is naturally cruel, and requires a regular\nsystem of police to be reclaimed; whereas nothing can be more gentle\nthan he in his primitive state, when placed by nature at an equal\ndistance from the stupidity of brutes, and the pernicious good sense\nof civilized man; and equally confined by instinct and reason to the\ncare of providing against the mischief which threatens him, he is\nwithheld by natural compassion from doing any injury to others, so far\nfrom being ever so little prone even to return that which he has\nreceived. For according to the axiom of the wise Locke, Where there is\nno property, there can be no injury.\n\nBut we must take notice, that the society now formed and the relations\nnow established among men required in them qualities different from\nthose, which they derived from their primitive constitution; that as a\nsense of morality began to insinuate itself into human actions, and\nevery man, before the enacting of laws, was the only judge and avenger\nof the injuries he had received, that goodness of heart suitable to\nthe pure state of nature by no means suited infant society; that it\nwas necessary punishments should become severer in the same proportion\nthat the opportunities of offending became more frequent, and the\ndread of vengeance add strength to the too weak curb of the law. Thus,\nthough men were become less patient, and natural compassion had\nalready suffered some alteration, this period of the development of\nthe human faculties, holding a just mean between the indolence of the\nprimitive state, and the petulant activity of self-love, must have\nbeen the happiest and most durable epoch. The more we reflect on this\nstate, the more convinced we shall be, that it was the least subject\nof any to revolutions, the best for man, and that nothing could have\ndrawn him out of it but some fatal accident, which, for the public\ngood, should never have happened. The example of the savages, most of\nwhom have been found in this condition, seems to confirm that mankind\nwas formed ever to remain in it, that this condition is the real youth\nof the world, and that all ulterior improvements have been so many\nsteps, in appearance towards the perfection of individuals, but in\nfact towards the decrepitness of the species.\n\nAs long as men remained satisfied with their rustic cabins; as long as\nthey confined themselves to the use of clothes made of the skins of\nother animals, and the use of thorns and fish-bones, in putting these\nskins together; as long as they continued to consider feathers and\nshells as sufficient ornaments, and to paint their bodies of different\ncolours, to improve or ornament their bows and arrows, to form and\nscoop out with sharp-edged stones some little fishing boats, or clumsy\ninstruments of music; in a word, as long as they undertook such works\nonly as a single person could finish, and stuck to such arts as did\nnot require the joint endeavours of several hands, they lived free,\nhealthy, honest and happy, as much as their nature would admit, and\ncontinued to enjoy with each other all the pleasures of an independent\nintercourse; but from the moment one man began to stand in need of\nanother's assistance; from the moment it appeared an advantage for one\nman to possess the quantity of provisions requisite for two, all\nequality vanished; property started up; labour became necessary; and\nboundless forests became smiling fields, which it was found necessary\nto water with human sweat, and in which slavery and misery were soon\nseen to sprout out and grow with the fruits of the earth.\n\nMetallurgy and agriculture were the two arts whose invention produced\nthis great revolution. With the poet, it is gold and silver, but with\nthe philosopher it is iron and corn, which have civilized men, and\nruined mankind. Accordingly both one and the other were unknown to the\nsavages of America, who for that very reason have always continued\nsavages; nay other nations seem to have continued in a state of\nbarbarism, as long as they continued to exercise one only of these\narts without the other; and perhaps one of the best reasons that can\nbe assigned, why Europe has been, if not earlier, at least more\nconstantly and better civilized than the other quarters of the world,\nis that she both abounds most in iron and is best qualified to\nproduce corn.\n\nIt is a very difficult matter to tell how men came to know anything of\niron, and the art of employing it: for we are not to suppose that they\nshould of themselves think of digging it out of the mines, and\npreparing it for fusion, before they knew what could be the result of\nsuch a process. On the other hand, there is the less reason to\nattribute this discovery to any accidental fire, as mines are formed\nnowhere but in dry and barren places, and such as are bare of trees\nand plants, so that it looks as if nature had taken pains to keep from\nus so mischievous a secret. Nothing therefore remains but the\nextraordinary circumstance of some volcano, which, belching forth\nmetallic substances ready fused, might have given the spectators a\nnotion of imitating that operation of nature; and after all we must\nsuppose them endued with an extraordinary stock of courage and\nforesight to undertake so painful a work, and have, at so great a\ndistance, an eye to the advantages they might derive from it;\nqualities scarcely suitable but to heads more exercised, than those of\nsuch discoverers can be supposed to have been.\n\nAs to agriculture, the principles of it were known a long time before\nthe practice of it took place, and it is hardly possible that men,\nconstantly employed in drawing their subsistence from trees and\nplants, should not have early hit on the means employed by nature for\nthe generation of vegetables; but in all probability it was very late\nbefore their industry took a turn that way, either because trees,\nwhich with their land and water game supplied them with sufficient\nfood, did not require their attention; or because they did not know\nthe use of corn; or because they had no instruments to cultivate it;\nor because they were destitute of foresight in regard to future\nnecessities; or in fine, because they wanted means to hinder others\nfrom running away with the fruit of their labours. We may believe that\non their becoming more industrious they began their agriculture by\ncultivating with sharp stones and pointed sticks a few pulse or roots\nabout their cabins; and that it was a long time before they knew the\nmethod of preparing corn, and were provided with instruments necessary\nto raise it in large quantities; not to mention the necessity there\nis, in order to follow this occupation and sow lands, to consent to\nlose something at present to gain a great deal hereafter; a precaution\nvery foreign to the turn of man's mind in a savage state, in which, as\nI have already taken notice, he can hardly foresee his wants from\nmorning to night.\n\nFor this reason the invention of other arts must have been necessary\nto oblige mankind to apply to that of agriculture. As soon as men\nwere wanted to fuse and forge iron, others were wanted to maintain\nthem. The more hands were employed in manufactures, the fewer hands\nwere left to provide subsistence for all, though the number of mouths\nto be supplied with food continued the same; and as some required\ncommodities in exchange for their iron, the rest at last found out the\nmethod of making iron subservient to the multiplication of\ncommodities. Hence on the one hand husbandry and agriculture, and on\nthe other the art of working metals and of multiplying the uses of\nthem.\n\nTo the tilling of the earth the distribution of it necessarily\nsucceeded, and to property once acknowledged, the first rules of\njustice: for to secure every man his own, every man must have\nsomething. Moreover, as men began to extend their views to futurity,\nand all found themselves in possession of more or less goods capable\nof being lost, every one in particular had reason to fear, lest\nreprisals should be made on him for any injury he might do to others.\nThis origin is so much the more natural, as it is impossible to\nconceive how property can flow from any other source but industry; for\nwhat can a man add but his labour to things which he has not made, in\norder to acquire a property in them? 'Tis the labour of the hands\nalone, which giving the husbandman a title to the produce of the land\nhe has tilled gives him a title to the land itself, at least till he\nhas gathered in the fruits of it, and so on from year to year; and\nthis enjoyment forming a continued possession is easily transformed\ninto a property. The ancients, says Grotius, by giving to Ceres the\nepithet of Legislatrix, and to a festival celebrated in her honour the\nname of Thesmorphoria, insinuated that the distribution of lands\nproduced a new kind of right; that is, the right of property different\nfrom that which results from the law of nature.\n\nThings thus circumstanced might have remained equal, if men's talents\nhad been equal, and if, for instance, the use of iron, and the\nconsumption of commodities had always held an exact proportion to each\nother; but as this proportion had no support, it was soon broken. The\nman that had most strength performed most labour; the most dexterous\nturned his labour to best account; the most ingenious found out\nmethods of lessening his labour; the husbandman required more iron, or\nthe smith more corn, and while both worked equally, one earned a great\ndeal by his labour, while the other could scarce live by his. It is\nthus that natural inequality insensibly unfolds itself with that\narising from a variety of combinations, and that the difference among\nmen, developed by the difference of their circumstances, becomes more\nsensible, more permanent in its effects, and begins to influence in\nthe same proportion the condition of private persons.\n\nThings once arrived at this period, it is an easy matter to imagine\nthe rest. I shall not stop to describe the successive inventions of\nother arts, the progress of language, the trial and employments of\ntalents, the inequality of fortunes, the use or abuse of riches, nor\nall the details which follow these, and which every one may easily\nsupply. I shall just give a glance at mankind placed in this new order\nof things.\n\nBehold then all our faculties developed; our memory and imagination at\nwork, self-love interested; reason rendered active; and the mind\nalmost arrived at the utmost bounds of that perfection it is capable\nof. Behold all our natural qualities put in motion; the rank and\ncondition of every man established, not only as to the quantum of\nproperty and the power of serving or hurting others, but likewise as\nto genius, beauty, strength or address, merit or talents; and as these\nwere the only qualities which could command respect, it was found\nnecessary to have or at least to affect them. It was requisite for men\nto be thought what they really were not. To be and to appear became\ntwo very different things, and from this distinction sprang pomp and\nknavery, and all the vices which form their train. On the other hand,\nman, heretofore free and independent, was now in consequence of a\nmultitude of new wants brought under subjection, as it were, to all\nnature, and especially to his fellows, whose slave in some sense he\nbecame even by becoming their master; if rich, he stood in need of\ntheir services, if poor, of their assistance; even mediocrity itself\ncould not enable him to do without them. He must therefore have been\ncontinually at work to interest them in his happiness, and make them,\nif not really, at least apparently find their advantage in labouring\nfor his: this rendered him sly and artful in his dealings with some,\nimperious and cruel in his dealings with others, and laid him under\nthe necessity of using ill all those whom he stood in need of, as\noften as he could not awe them into a compliance with his will, and\ndid not find it his interest to purchase it at the expense of real\nservices. In fine, an insatiable ambition, the rage of raising their\nrelative fortunes, not so much through real necessity, as to over-top\nothers, inspire all men with a wicked inclination to injure each\nother, and with a secret jealousy so much the more dangerous, as to\ncarry its point with the greater security, it often puts on the face\nof benevolence. In a word, sometimes nothing was to be seen but a\ncontention of endeavours on the one hand, and an opposition of\ninterests on the other, while a secret desire of thriving at the\nexpense of others constantly prevailed. Such were the first effects of\nproperty, and the inseparable attendants of infant inequality.\n\nRiches, before the invention of signs to represent them, could scarce\nconsist in anything but lands and cattle, the only real goods which\nmen can possess. But when estates increased so much in number and in\nextent as to take in whole countries and touch each other, it became\nimpossible for one man to aggrandise himself but at the expense of\nsome other; and the supernumerary inhabitants, who were too weak or\ntoo indolent to make such acquisitions in their turn, impoverished\nwithout losing anything, because while everything about them changed\nthey alone remained the same, were obliged to receive or force their\nsubsistence from the hands of the rich. And hence began to flow,\naccording to the different characters of each, domination and slavery,\nor violence and rapine. The rich on their side scarce began to taste\nthe pleasure of commanding, when they preferred it to every other; and\nmaking use of their old slaves to acquire new ones, they no longer\nthought of anything but subduing and enslaving their neighbours; like\nthose ravenous wolves, who having once tasted human flesh, despise\nevery other food, and devour nothing but men for the future.\n\nIt is thus that the most powerful or the most wretched, respectively\nconsidering their power and wretchedness as a kind of title to the\nsubstance of others, even equivalent to that of property, the equality\nonce broken was followed by the most shocking disorders. It is thus\nthat the usurpations of the rich, the pillagings of the poor, and the\nunbridled passions of all, by stifling the cries of natural\ncompassion, and the as yet feeble voice of justice, rendered man\navaricious, wicked and ambitious. There arose between the title of the\nstrongest, and that of the first occupier a perpetual conflict, which\nalways ended in battery and bloodshed. Infant society became a scene\nof the most horrible warfare: Mankind thus debased and harassed, and\nno longer able to retreat, or renounce the unhappy acquisitions it had\nmade; labouring, in short merely to its confusion by the abuse of\nthose faculties, which in themselves do it so much honour, brought\nitself to the very brink of ruin and destruction.\n\n  Attonitus novitate mali, divesque miserque,\n  Effugere optat opes; et quoe modo voverat, odit.\n\nBut it is impossible that men should not sooner or later have made\nreflections on so wretched a situation, and upon the calamities with\nwhich they were overwhelmed. The rich in particular must have soon\nperceived how much they suffered by a perpetual war, of which they\nalone supported all the expense, and in which, though all risked life,\nthey alone risked any substance. Besides, whatever colour they might\npretend to give their usurpations, they sufficiently saw that these\nusurpations were in the main founded upon false and precarious titles,\nand that what they had acquired by mere force, others could again by\nmere force wrest out of their hands, without leaving them the least\nroom to complain of such a proceeding. Even those, who owed all their\nriches to their own industry, could scarce ground their acquisitions\nupon a better title. It availed them nothing to say, 'Twas I built\nthis wall; I acquired this spot by my labour. Who traced it out for\nyou, another might object, and what right have you to expect payment\nat our expense for doing that we did not oblige you to do? Don't you\nknow that numbers of your brethren perish, or suffer grievously for\nwant of what you possess more than suffices nature, and that you\nshould have had the express and unanimous consent of mankind to\nappropriate to yourself of their common, more than was requisite for\nyour private subsistence? Destitute of solid reasons to justify, and\nsufficient force to defend himself; crushing individuals with ease,\nbut with equal ease crushed by numbers; one against all, and unable,\non account of mutual jealousies, to unite with his equals against\nbanditti united by the common hopes of pillage; the rich man, thus\npressed by necessity, at last conceived the deepest project that ever\nentered the human mind: this was to employ in his favour the very\nforces that attacked him, to make allies of his enemies, to inspire\nthem with other maxims, and make them adopt other institutions as\nfavourable to his pretensions, as the law of nature was unfavourable\nto them.\n\nWith this view, after laying before his neighbours all the horrors of\na situation, which armed them all one against another, which rendered\ntheir possessions as burdensome as their wants were intolerable, and\nin which no one could expect any safety either in poverty or riches,\nhe easily invented specious arguments to bring them over to his\npurpose. \"Let us unite,\" said he, \"to secure the weak from\noppression, restrain the ambitious, and secure to every man the\npossession of what belongs to him: Let us form rules of justice and\npeace, to which all may be obliged to conform, which shall not except\npersons, but may in some sort make amends for the caprice of fortune,\nby submitting alike the powerful and the weak to the observance of\nmutual duties. In a word, instead of turning our forces against\nourselves, let us collect them into a sovereign power, which may\ngovern us by wise laws, may protect and defend all the members of the\nassociation, repel common enemies, and maintain a perpetual concord\nand harmony among us.\"\n\nMuch fewer words of this kind were sufficient to draw in a parcel of\nrustics, whom it was an easy matter to impose upon, who had besides\ntoo many quarrels among themselves to live without arbiters, and too\nmuch avarice and ambition to live long without masters. All offered\ntheir necks to the yoke in hopes of securing their liberty; for though\nthey had sense enough to perceive the advantages of a political\nconstitution, they had not experience enough to see beforehand the\ndangers of it; those among them, who were best qualified to foresee\nabuses, were precisely those who expected to benefit by them; even the\nsoberest judged it requisite to sacrifice one part of their liberty to\nensure the other, as a man, dangerously wounded in any of his limbs,\nreadily parts with it to save the rest of his body.\n\nSuch was, or must have been, had man been left to himself, the origin\nof society and of the laws, which increased the fetters of the weak,\nand the strength of the rich; irretrievably destroyed natural liberty,\nfixed for ever the laws of property and inequality; changed an artful\nusurpation into an irrevocable title; and for the benefit of a few\nambitious individuals subjected the rest of mankind to perpetual\nlabour, servitude, and misery. We may easily conceive how the\nestablishment of a single society rendered that of all the rest\nabsolutely necessary, and how, to make head against united forces, it\nbecame necessary for the rest of mankind to unite in their turn.\nSocieties once formed in this manner, soon multiplied or spread to\nsuch a degree, as to cover the face of the earth; and not to leave a\ncorner in the whole universe, where a man could throw off the yoke,\nand withdraw his head from under the often ill-conducted sword which\nhe saw perpetually hanging over it. The civil law being thus become\nthe common rule of citizens, the law of nature no longer obtained but\namong the different societies, in which, under the name of the law of\nnations, it was qualified by some tacit conventions to render commerce\npossible, and supply the place of natural compassion, which, losing by\ndegrees all that influence over societies which it originally had over\nindividuals, no longer exists but in some great souls, who consider\nthemselves as citizens of the world, and forcing the imaginary\nbarriers that separate people from people, after the example of the\nSovereign Being from whom we all derive our existence, make the whole\nhuman race the object of their benevolence.\n\nPolitical bodies, thus remaining in a state of nature among\nthemselves, soon experienced the inconveniences which had obliged\nindividuals to quit it; and this state became much more fatal to these\ngreat bodies, than it had been before to the individuals which now\ncomposed them. Hence those national wars, those battles, those\nmurders, those reprisals, which make nature shudder and shock reason;\nhence all those horrible prejudices, which make it a virtue and an\nhonour to shed human blood. The worthiest men learned to consider the\ncutting the throats of their fellows as a duty; at length men began to\nbutcher each other by thousands without knowing for what; and more\nmurders were committed in a single action, and more horrible disorders\nat the taking of a single town, than had been committed in the state\nof nature during ages together upon the whole face of the earth. Such\nare the first effects we may conceive to have arisen from the division\nof mankind into different societies. Let us return to their\ninstitution.\n\nI know that several writers have assigned other origins of political\nsociety; as for instance, the conquests of the powerful, or the union\nof the weak; and it is no matter which of these causes we adopt in\nregard to what I am going to establish; that, however, which I have\njust laid down, seems to me the most natural, for the following\nreasons: First, because, in the first case, the right of conquest\nbeing in fact no right at all, it could not serve as a foundation for\nany other right, the conqueror and the conquered ever remaining with\nrespect to each other in a state of war, unless the conquered,\nrestored to the full possession of their liberty, should freely choose\ntheir conqueror for their chief. Till then, whatever capitulations\nmight have been made between them, as these capitulations were founded\nupon violence, and of course _de facto_ null and void, there could not\nhave existed in this hypothesis either a true society, or a political\nbody, or any other law but that of the strongest. Second, because\nthese words strong and weak, are ambiguous in the second case; for\nduring the interval between the establishment of the right of property\nor prior occupation and that of political government, the meaning of\nthese terms is better expressed by the words poor and rich, as before\nthe establishment of laws men in reality had no other means of\nreducing their equals, but by invading the property of these equals,\nor by parting with some of their own property to them. Third, because\nthe poor having nothing but their liberty to lose, it would have been\nthe height of madness in them to give up willingly the only blessing\nthey had left without obtaining some consideration for it: whereas the\nrich being sensible, if I may say so, in every part of their\npossessions, it was much easier to do them mischief, and therefore\nmore incumbent upon them to guard against it; and because, in fine, it\nis but reasonable to suppose, that a thing has been invented by him to\nwhom it could be of service rather than by him to whom it must prove\ndetrimental.\n\nGovernment in its infancy had no regular and permanent form. For want\nof a sufficient fund of philosophy and experience, men could see no\nfurther than the present inconveniences, and never thought of\nproviding remedies for future ones, but in proportion as they arose.\nIn spite of all the labours of the wisest legislators, the political\nstate still continued imperfect, because it was in a manner the work\nof chance; and, as the foundations of it were ill laid, time, though\nsufficient to discover its defects and suggest the remedies for them,\ncould never mend its original vices. Men were continually repairing;\nwhereas, to erect a good edifice, they should have begun as Lycurgus\ndid at Sparta, by clearing the area, and removing the old materials.\nSociety at first consisted merely of some general conventions which\nall the members bound themselves to observe, and for the performance\nof which the whole body became security to every individual.\nExperience was necessary to show the great weakness of such a\nconstitution, and how easy it was for those, who infringed it, to\nescape the conviction or chastisement of faults, of which the public\nalone was to be both the witness and the judge; the laws could not\nfail of being eluded a thousand ways; inconveniences and disorders\ncould not but multiply continually, till it was at last found\nnecessary to think of committing to private persons the dangerous\ntrust of public authority, and to magistrates the care of enforcing\nobedience to the people: for to say that chiefs were elected before\nconfederacies were formed, and that the ministers of the laws existed\nbefore the laws themselves, is a supposition too ridiculous to deserve\nI should seriously refute it.\n\nIt would be equally unreasonable to imagine that men at first threw\nthemselves into the arms of an absolute master, without any conditions\nor consideration on his side; and that the first means contrived by\njealous and unconquered men for their common safety was to run hand\nover head into slavery. In fact, why did they give themselves\nsuperiors, if it was not to be defended by them against oppression,\nand protected in their lives, liberties, and properties, which are in\na manner the constitutional elements of their being? Now in the\nrelations between man and man, the worst that can happen to one man\nbeing to see himself at the discretion of another, would it not have\nbeen contrary to the dictates of good sense to begin by making over to\na chief the only things for the preservation of which they stood in\nneed of his assistance? What equivalent could he have offered them\nfor so fine a privilege? And had he presumed to exact it on pretense\nof defending them, would he not have immediately received the answer\nin the apologue? What worse treatment can we expect from an enemy? It\nis therefore past dispute, and indeed a fundamental maxim of political\nlaw, that people gave themselves chiefs to defend their liberty and\nnot be enslaved by them. If we have a prince, said Pliny to Trajan, it\nis in order that he may keep us from having a master.\n\nPolitical writers argue in regard to the love of liberty with the same\nphilosophy that philosophers do in regard to the state of nature; by\nthe things they see they judge of things very different which they\nhave never seen, and they attribute to men a natural inclination to\nslavery, on account of the patience with which the slaves within their\nnotice carry the yoke; not reflecting that it is with liberty as with\ninnocence and virtue, the value of which is not known but by those who\npossess them, though the relish for them is lost with the things\nthemselves. I know the charms of your country, said Brasidas to a\nsatrap who was comparing the life of the Spartans with that of the\nPersepolites; but you can not know the pleasures of mine.\n\nAs an unbroken courser erects his mane, paws the ground, and rages at\nthe bare sight of the bit, while a trained horse patiently suffers\nboth whip and spur, just so the barbarian will never reach his neck to\nthe yoke which civilized man carries without murmuring but prefers the\nmost stormy liberty to a calm subjection. It is not therefore by the\nservile disposition of enslaved nations that we must judge of the\nnatural dispositions of man for or against slavery, but by the\nprodigies done by every free people to secure themselves from\noppression. I know that the first are constantly crying up that peace\nand tranquillity they enjoy in their irons, and that _miserrimam\nservitutem pacem appellant_: but when I see the others sacrifice\npleasures, peace, riches, power, and even life itself to the\npreservation of that single jewel so much slighted by those who have\nlost it; when I see free-born animals through a natural abhorrence of\ncaptivity dash their brains out against the bars of their prison; when\nI see multitudes of naked savages despise European pleasures, and\nbrave hunger, fire and sword, and death itself to preserve their\nindependency; I feel that it belongs not to slaves to argue concerning\nliberty.\n\nAs to paternal authority, from which several have derived absolute\ngovernment and every other mode of society, it is sufficient, without\nhaving recourse to Locke and Sidney, to observe that nothing in the\nworld differs more from the cruel spirit of despotism that the\ngentleness of that authority, which looks more to the advantage of him\nwho obeys than to the utility of him who commands; that by the law of\nnature the father continues master of his child no longer than the\nchild stands in need of his assistance; that after that term they\nbecome equal, and that then the son, entirely independent of the\nfather, owes him no obedience, but only respect. Gratitude is indeed\na duty which we are bound to pay, but which benefactors can not exact.\nInstead of saying that civil society is derived from paternal\nauthority, we should rather say that it is to the former that the\nlatter owes its principal force: No one individual was acknowledged as\nthe father of several other individuals, till they settled about him.\nThe father's goods, which he can indeed dispose of as he pleases, are\nthe ties which hold his children to their dependence upon him, and he\nmay divide his substance among them in proportion as they shall have\ndeserved his attention by a continual deference to his commands. Now\nthe subjects of a despotic chief, far from having any such favour to\nexpect from him, as both themselves and all they have are his\nproperty, or at least are considered by him as such, are obliged to\nreceive as a favour what he relinquishes to them of their own\nproperty. He does them justice when he strips them; he treats them\nwith mercy when he suffers them to live. By continuing in this manner\nto compare facts with right, we should discover as little solidity as\ntruth in the voluntary establishment of tyranny; and it would be a\nhard matter to prove the validity of a contract which was binding only\non one side, in which one of the parties should stake everything and\nthe other nothing, and which could turn out to the prejudice of him\nalone who had bound himself.\n\nThis odious system is even, at this day, far from being that of wise\nand good monarchs, and especially of the kings of France, as may be\nseen by divers passages in their edicts, and particularly by that of a\ncelebrated piece published in 1667 in the name and by the orders of\nLouis XIV. \"Let it therefore not be said that the sovereign is not\nsubject to the laws of his realm, since, that he is, is a maxim of the\nlaw of nations which flattery has sometimes attacked, but which good\nprinces have always defended as the tutelary divinity of their realms.\nHow much more reasonable is it to say with the sage Plato, that the\nperfect happiness of a state consists in the subjects obeying their\nprince, the prince obeying the laws, and the laws being equitable and\nalways directed to the good of the public?\" I shall not stop to\nconsider, if, liberty being the most noble faculty of man, it is not\ndegrading one's nature, reducing one's self to the level of brutes,\nwho are the slaves of instinct, and even offending the author of one's\nbeing, to renounce without reserve the most precious of his gifts, and\nsubmit to the commission of all the crimes he has forbid us, merely to\ngratify a mad or a cruel master; and if this sublime artist ought to\nbe more irritated at seeing his work destroyed than at seeing it\ndishonoured. I shall only ask what right those, who were not afraid\nthus to degrade themselves, could have to subject their dependants to\nthe same ignominy, and renounce, in the name of their posterity,\nblessings for which it is not indebted to their liberality, and\nwithout which life itself must appear a burthen to all those who are\nworthy to live.\n\nPuffendorf says that, as we can transfer our property from one to\nanother by contracts and conventions, we may likewise divest ourselves\nof our liberty in favour of other men. This, in my opinion, is a very\npoor way of arguing; for, in the first place, the property I cede to\nanother becomes by such cession a thing quite foreign to me, and the\nabuse of which can no way affect me; but it concerns me greatly that\nmy liberty is not abused, and I can not, without incurring the guilt\nof the crimes I may be forced to commit, expose myself to become the\ninstrument of any. Besides, the right of property being of mere human\nconvention and institution, every man may dispose as he pleases of\nwhat he possesses: But the case is otherwise with regard to the\nessential gifts of nature, such as life and liberty, which every man\nis permitted to enjoy, and of which it is doubtful at least whether\nany man has a right to divest himself: By giving up the one, we\ndegrade our being; by giving up the other we annihilate it as much as\nit is our power to do so; and as no temporal enjoyments can indemnify\nus for the loss of either, it would be at once offending both nature\nand reason to renounce them for any consideration. But though we could\ntransfer our liberty as we do our substance, the difference would be\nvery great with regard to our children, who enjoy our substance but by\na cession of our right; whereas liberty being a blessing, which as men\nthey hold from nature, their parents have no right to strip them of\nit; so that as to establish slavery it was necessary to do violence to\nnature, so it was necessary to alter nature to perpetuate such a\nright; and the jurisconsults, who have gravely pronounced that the\nchild of a slave comes a slave into the world, have in other words\ndecided, that a man does not come a man into the world.\n\nIt therefore appears to me incontestably true, that not only\ngovernments did not begin by arbitrary power, which is but the\ncorruption and extreme term of government, and at length brings it\nback to the law of the strongest, against which governments were at\nfirst the remedy, but even that, allowing they had commenced in this\nmanner, such power being illegal in itself could never have served as\na foundation to the rights of society, nor of course to the inequality\nof institution.\n\nI shall not now enter upon the inquiries which still remain to be made\ninto the nature of the fundamental pacts of every kind of government,\nbut, following the common opinion, confine myself in this place to the\nestablishment of the political body as a real contract between the\nmultitude and the chiefs elected by it. A contract by which both\nparties oblige themselves to the observance of the laws that are\ntherein stipulated, and form the bands of their union. The multitude\nhaving, on occasion of the social relations between them, concentered\nall their wills in one person, all the articles, in regard to which\nthis will explains itself, become so many fundamental laws, which\noblige without exception all the members of the state, and one of\nwhich laws regulates the choice and the power of the magistrates\nappointed to look to the execution of the rest. This power extends to\neverything that can maintain the constitution, but extends to nothing\nthat can alter it. To this power are added honours, that may render\nthe laws and the ministers of them respectable; and the persons of the\nministers are distinguished by certain prerogatives, which may make\nthem amends for the great fatigues inseparable from a good\nadministration. The magistrate, on his side, obliges himself not to\nuse the power with which he is intrusted but conformably to the\nintention of his constituents, to maintain every one of them in the\npeaceable possession of his property, and upon all occasions prefer\nthe good of the public to his own private interest.\n\nBefore experience had demonstrated, or a thorough knowledge of the\nhuman heart had pointed out, the abuses inseparable from such a\nconstitution, it must have appeared so much the more perfect, as those\nappointed to look to its preservation were themselves most concerned\ntherein; for magistracy and its rights being built solely on the\nfundamental laws, as soon as these ceased to exist, the magistrates\nwould cease to be lawful, the people would no longer be bound to obey\nthem, and, as the essence of the state did not consist in the\nmagistrates but in the laws, the members of it would immediately\nbecome entitled to their primitive and natural liberty.\n\nA little reflection would afford us new arguments in confirmation of\nthis truth, and the nature of the contract might alone convince us\nthat it can not be irrevocable: for if there was no superior power\ncapable of guaranteeing the fidelity of the contracting parties and of\nobliging them to fulfil their mutual engagements, they would remain\nsole judges in their own cause, and each of them would always have a\nright to renounce the contract, as soon as he discovered that the\nother had broke the conditions of it, or that these conditions ceased\nto suit his private convenience. Upon this principle, the right of\nabdication may probably be founded. Now, to consider as we do nothing\nbut what is human in this institution, if the magistrate, who has all\nthe power in his own hands, and who appropriates to himself all the\nadvantages of the contract, has notwithstanding a right to divest\nhimself of his authority; how much a better right must the people, who\npay for all the faults of its chief, have to renounce their dependence\nupon him. But the shocking dissensions and disorders without number,\nwhich would be the necessary consequence of so dangerous a privilege,\nshow more than anything else how much human governments stood in need\nof a more solid basis than that of mere reason, and how necessary it\nwas for the public tranquillity, that the will of the Almighty should\ninterpose to give to sovereign authority, a sacred and inviolable\ncharacter, which should deprive subjects of the mischievous right to\ndispose of it to whom they pleased. If mankind had received no other\nadvantages from religion, this alone would be sufficient to make them\nadopt and cherish it, since it is the means of saving more blood than\nfanaticism has been the cause of spilling. But to resume the thread of\nour hypothesis.\n\nThe various forms of government owe their origin to the various\ndegrees of inequality between the members, at the time they first\ncoalesced into a political body. Where a man happened to be eminent\nfor power, for virtue, for riches, or for credit, he became sole\nmagistrate, and the state assumed a monarchical form; if many of\npretty equal eminence out-topped all the rest, they were jointly\nelected, and this election produced an aristocracy; those, between\nwhose fortune or talents there happened to be no such disproportion,\nand who had deviated less from the state of nature, retained in common\nthe supreme administration, and formed a democracy. Time demonstrated\nwhich of these forms suited mankind best. Some remained altogether\nsubject to the laws; others soon bowed their necks to masters. The\nformer laboured to preserve their liberty; the latter thought of\nnothing but invading that of their neighbours, jealous at seeing\nothers enjoy a blessing which themselves had lost. In a word, riches\nand conquest fell to the share of the one, and virtue and happiness to\nthat of the other.\n\nIn these various modes of government the offices at first were all\nelective; and when riches did not preponderate, the preference was\ngiven to merit, which gives a natural ascendant, and to age, which is\nthe parent of deliberateness in council, and experience in execution.\nThe ancients among the Hebrews, the Geronts of Sparta, the Senate of\nRome, nay, the very etymology of our word seigneur, show how much gray\nhairs were formerly respected. The oftener the choice fell upon old\nmen, the oftener it became necessary to repeat it, and the more the\ntrouble of such repetitions became sensible; electioneering took\nplace; factions arose; the parties contracted ill blood; civil wars\nblazed forth; the lives of the citizens were sacrificed to the\npretended happiness of the state; and things at last came to such a\npass, as to be ready to relapse into their primitive confusion. The\nambition of the principal men induced them to take advantage of these\ncircumstances to perpetuate the hitherto temporary charges in their\nfamilies; the people already inured to dependence, accustomed to ease\nand the conveniences of life, and too much enervated to break their\nfetters, consented to the increase of their slavery for the sake of\nsecuring their tranquillity; and it is thus that chiefs, become\nhereditary, contracted the habit of considering magistracies as a\nfamily estate, and themselves as proprietors of those communities, of\nwhich at first they were but mere officers; to call their\nfellow-citizens their slaves; to look upon them, like so many cows or\nsheep, as a part of their substance; and to style themselves the peers\nof Gods, and Kings of Kings.\n\nBy pursuing the progress of inequality in these different revolutions,\nwe shall discover that the establishment of laws and of the right of\nproperty was the first term of it; the institution of magistrates the\nsecond; and the third and last the changing of legal into arbitrary\npower; so that the different states of rich and poor were authorized\nby the first epoch; those of powerful and weak by the second; and by\nthe third those of master and slave, which formed the last degree of\ninequality, and the term in which all the rest at last end, till new\nrevolutions entirely dissolve the government, or bring it back nearer\nto its legal constitution.\n\nTo conceive the necessity of this progress, we are not so much to\nconsider the motives for the establishment of political bodies, as the\nforms these bodies assume in their administration; and the\ninconveniences with which they are essentially attended; for those\nvices, which render social institutions necessary, are the same which\nrender the abuse of such institutions unavoidable; and as (Sparta\nalone excepted, whose laws chiefly regarded the education of children,\nand where Lycurgus established such manners and customs, as in a great\nmeasure made laws needless,) the laws, in general less strong than the\npassions, restrain men without changing them; it would be no hard\nmatter to prove that every government, which carefully guarding\nagainst all alteration and corruption should scrupulously comply with\nthe ends of its institution, was unnecessarily instituted; and that a\ncountry, where no one either eluded the laws, or made an ill use of\nmagistracy, required neither laws nor magistrates.\n\nPolitical distinctions are necessarily attended with civil\ndistinctions. The inequality between the people and the chiefs\nincrease so fast as to be soon felt by the private members, and\nappears among them in a thousand shapes according to their passions,\ntheir talents, and the circumstances of affairs. The magistrate can\nnot usurp any illegal power without making himself creatures, with\nwhom he must divide it. Besides, the citizens of a free state suffer\nthemselves to be oppressed merely in proportion as, hurried on by a\nblind ambition, and looking rather below than above them, they come to\nlove authority more than independence. When they submit to fetters,\n'tis only to be the better able to fetter others in their turn. It is\nno easy matter to make him obey, who does not wish to command; and the\nmost refined policy would find it impossible to subdue those men, who\nonly desire to be independent; but inequality easily gains ground\namong base and ambitious souls, ever ready to run the risks of\nfortune, and almost indifferent whether they command or obey, as she\nproves either favourable or adverse to them. Thus then there must have\nbeen a time, when the eyes of the people were bewitched to such a\ndegree, that their rulers needed only to have said to the most pitiful\nwretch, \"Be great you and all your posterity,\" to make him immediately\nappear great in the eyes of every one as well as in his own; and his\ndescendants took still more upon them, in proportion to their removes\nfrom him: the more distant and uncertain the cause, the greater the\neffect; the longer line of drones a family produced, the more\nillustrious it was reckoned.\n\nWere this a proper place to enter into details, I could easily explain\nin what manner inequalities in point of credit and authority become\nunavoidable among private persons the moment that, united into one\nbody, they are obliged to compare themselves one with another, and to\nnote the differences which they find in the continual use every man\nmust make of his neighbour. These differences are of several kinds;\nbut riches, nobility or rank, power and personal merit, being in\ngeneral the principal distinctions, by which men in society measure\neach other, I could prove that the harmony or conflict between these\ndifferent forces is the surest indication of the good or bad original\nconstitution of any state: I could make it appear that, as among these\nfour kinds of inequality, personal qualities are the source of all the\nrest, riches is that in which they ultimately terminate, because,\nbeing the most immediately useful to the prosperity of individuals,\nand the most easy to communicate, they are made use of to purchase\nevery other distinction. By this observation we are enabled to judge\nwith tolerable exactness, how much any people has deviated from its\nprimitive institution, and what steps it has still to make to the\nextreme term of corruption. I could show how much this universal\ndesire of reputation, of honours, of preference, with which we are all\ndevoured, exercises and compares our talents and our forces: how much\nit excites and multiplies our passions; and, by creating an universal\ncompetition, rivalship, or rather enmity among men, how many\ndisappointments, successes, and catastrophes of every kind it daily\ncauses among the innumerable pretenders whom it engages in the same\ncareer. I could show that it is to this itch of being spoken of, to\nthis fury of distinguishing ourselves which seldom or never gives us a\nmoment's respite, that we owe both the best and the worst things among\nus, our virtues and our vices, our sciences and our errors, our\nconquerors and our philosophers; that is to say, a great many bad\nthings to a very few good ones. I could prove, in short, that if we\nbehold a handful of rich and powerful men seated on the pinnacle of\nfortune and greatness, while the crowd grovel in obscurity and want,\nit is merely because the first prize what they enjoy but in the same\ndegree that others want it, and that, without changing their\ncondition, they would cease to be happy the minute the people ceased\nto be miserable.\n\nBut these details would alone furnish sufficient matter for a more\nconsiderable work, in which might be weighed the advantages and\ndisadvantages of every species of government, relatively to the rights\nof man in a state of nature, and might likewise be unveiled all the\ndifferent faces under which inequality has appeared to this day, and\nmay hereafter appear to the end of time, according to the nature of\nthese several governments, and the revolutions time must unavoidably\noccasion in them. We should then see the multitude oppressed by\ndomestic tyrants in consequence of those very precautions taken by\nthem to guard against foreign masters. We should see oppression\nincrease continually without its being ever possible for the oppressed\nto know where it would stop, nor what lawful means they had left to\ncheck its progress. We should see the rights of citizens, and the\nliberties of nations extinguished by slow degrees, and the groans, and\nprotestations and appeals of the weak treated as seditious murmurings.\nWe should see policy confine to a mercenary portion of the people the\nhonour of defending the common cause. We should see imposts made\nnecessary by such measures, the disheartened husbandman desert his\nfield even in time of peace, and quit the plough to take up the sword.\nWe should see fatal and whimsical rules laid down concerning the point\nof honour. We should see the champions of their country sooner or\nlater become her enemies, and perpetually holding their poniards to\nthe breasts of their fellow citizens. Nay, the time would come when\nthey might be heard to say to the oppressor of their country:\n\n  Pectore si fratris gladium juguloque parentis\n  Condere me jubeas, gravidoeque in viscera partu\n  Conjugis, in vita peragam tamen omnia dextra.\n\nFrom the vast inequality of conditions and fortunes, from the great\nvariety of passions and of talents, of useless arts, of pernicious\narts, of frivolous sciences, would issue clouds of prejudices equally\ncontrary to reason, to happiness, to virtue. We should see the chiefs\nfoment everything that tends to weaken men formed into societies by\ndividing them; everything that, while it gives society an air of\napparent harmony, sows in it the seeds of real division; everything\nthat can inspire the different orders with mutual distrust and hatred\nby an opposition of their rights and interest, and of course\nstrengthen that power which contains them all.\n\n'Tis from the bosom of this disorder and these revolutions, that\ndespotism gradually rearing up her hideous crest, and devouring in\nevery part of the state all that still remained sound and untainted,\nwould at last issue to trample upon the laws and the people, and\nestablish herself upon the ruins of the republic. The times\nimmediately preceding this last alteration would be times of calamity\nand trouble: but at last everything would be swallowed up by the\nmonster; and the people would no longer have chiefs or laws, but only\ntyrants. At this fatal period all regard to virtue and manners would\nlikewise disappear; for despotism, _cui ex honesto nulla est spes_,\ntolerates no other master, wherever it reigns; the moment it speaks,\nprobity and duty lose all their influence, and the blindest obedience\nis the only virtue the miserable slaves have left them to practise.\n\nThis is the last term of inequality, the extreme point which closes\nthe circle and meets that from which we set out. 'Tis here that all\nprivate men return to their primitive equality, because they are no\nlonger of any account; and that, the subjects having no longer any law\nbut that of their master, nor the master any other law but his\npassions, all notions of good and principles of justice again\ndisappear. 'Tis here that everything returns to the sole law of the\nstrongest, and of course to a new state of nature different from that\nwith which we began, in as much as the first was the state of nature\nin its purity, and the last the consequence of excessive corruption.\nThere is, in other respects, so little difference between these two\nstates, and the contract of government is so much dissolved by\ndespotism, that the despot is no longer master than he continues the\nstrongest, and that, as soon as his slaves can expel him, they may do\nit without his having the least right to complain of their using him\nill. The insurrection, which ends in the death or despotism of a\nsultan, is as juridical an act as any by which the day before he\ndisposed of the lives and fortunes of his subjects. Force alone upheld\nhim, force alone overturns him. Thus all things take place and succeed\nin their natural order; and whatever may be the upshot of these hasty\nand frequent revolutions, no one man has reason to complain of\nanother's injustice, but only of his own indiscretion or bad fortune.\n\nBy thus discovering and following the lost and forgotten tracks, by\nwhich man from the natural must have arrived at the civil state; by\nrestoring, with the intermediate positions which I have been just\nindicating, those which want of leisure obliges me to suppress, or\nwhich my imagination has not suggested, every attentive reader must\nunavoidably be struck at the immense space which separates these two\nstates. 'Tis in this slow succession of things he may meet with the\nsolution of an infinite number of problems in morality and politics,\nwhich philosophers are puzzled to solve. He will perceive that, the\nmankind of one age not being the mankind of another, the reason why\nDiogenes could not find a man was, that he sought among his\ncotemporaries the man of an earlier period: Cato, he will then see,\nfell with Rome and with liberty, because he did not suit the age in\nwhich he lived; and the greatest of men served only to astonish that\nworld, which would have cheerfully obeyed him, had he come into it\nfive hundred years earlier. In a word, he will find himself in a\ncondition to understand how the soul and the passions of men by\ninsensible alterations change as it were their nature; how it comes to\npass, that at the long run our wants and our pleasures change objects;\nthat, original man vanishing by degrees, society no longer offers to\nour inspection but an assemblage of artificial men and factitious\npassions, which are the work of all these new relations, and have no\nfoundation in nature. Reflection teaches us nothing on that head, but\nwhat experience perfectly confirms. Savage man and civilised man\ndiffer so much at bottom in point of inclinations and passions, that\nwhat constitutes the supreme happiness of the one would reduce the\nother to despair. The first sighs for nothing but repose and liberty;\nhe desires only to live, and to be exempt from labour; nay, the\nataraxy of the most confirmed Stoic falls short of his consummate\nindifference for every other object. On the contrary, the citizen\nalways in motion, is perpetually sweating and toiling, and racking his\nbrains to find out occupations still more laborious: He continues a\ndrudge to his last minute; nay, he courts death to be able to live, or\nrenounces life to acquire immortality. He cringes to men in power whom\nhe hates, and to rich men whom he despises; he sticks at nothing to\nhave the honour of serving them; he is not ashamed to value himself on\nhis own weakness and the protection they afford him; and proud of his\nchains, he speaks with disdain of those who have not the honour of\nbeing the partner of his bondage. What a spectacle must the painful\nand envied labours of an European minister of state form in the eyes\nof a Caribbean! How many cruel deaths would not this indolent savage\nprefer to such a horrid life, which very often is not even sweetened\nby the pleasure of doing good? But to see the drift of so many cares,\nhis mind should first have affixed some meaning to these words power\nand reputation; he should be apprised that there are men who consider\nas something the looks of the rest of mankind, who know how to be\nhappy and satisfied with themselves on the testimony of others sooner\nthan upon their own. In fact, the real source of all those\ndifferences, is that the savage lives within himself, whereas the\ncitizen, constantly beside himself, knows only how to live in the\nopinion of others; insomuch that it is, if I may say so, merely from\ntheir judgment that he derives the consciousness of his own existence.\nIt is foreign to my subject to show how this disposition engenders so\nmuch indifference for good and evil, notwithstanding so many and such\nfine discourses of morality; how everything, being reduced to\nappearances, becomes mere art and mummery; honour, friendship, virtue,\nand often vice itself, which we at last learn the secret to boast of;\nhow, in short, ever inquiring of others what we are, and never daring\nto question ourselves on so delicate a point, in the midst of so much\nphilosophy, humanity, and politeness, and so many sublime maxims, we\nhave nothing to show for ourselves but a deceitful and frivolous\nexterior, honour without virtue, reason without wisdom, and pleasure\nwithout happiness. It is sufficient that I have proved that this is\nnot the original condition of man, and that it is merely the spirit of\nsociety, and the inequality which society engenders, that thus change\nand transform all our natural inclinations.\n\nI have endeavoured to exhibit the origin and progress of inequality,\nthe institution and abuse of political societies, as far as these\nthings are capable of being deduced from the nature of man by the mere\nlight of reason, and independently of those sacred maxims which give\nto the sovereign authority the sanction of divine right. It follows\nfrom this picture, that as there is scarce any inequality among men in\na state of nature, all that which we now behold owes its force and its\ngrowth to the development of our faculties and the improvement of our\nunderstanding, and at last becomes permanent and lawful by the\nestablishment of property and of laws. It likewise follows that moral\ninequality, authorised by any right that is merely positive, clashes\nwith natural right, as often as it does not combine in the same\nproportion with physical inequality: a distinction which sufficiently\ndetermines, what we are able to think in that respect of that kind of\ninequality which obtains in all civilised nations, since it is\nevidently against the law of nature that infancy should command old\nage, folly conduct wisdom, and a handful of men should be ready to\nchoke with superfluities, while the famished multitude want the\ncommonest necessaries of life.\n\n\n\n\n[Transcriber's Note: Some words which appear to be potential typos are\nprinted as such in the original book: These possible words include\ncotemporaries and oftens. The paragraph starting with the words \"This\nodius system is even\" contains unmatched quotes, which have been\nreproduced as they appeared in the orginal. This work was transcribed\nfrom a anthology (Harvard Classics Volume 34) published in 1910. The\neditor of the entire series was Charles W. Eliot. The name of the\ntranslator was not given, nor was the name of the author of the\nintroduction. Indented lines indicate embedded verse that should not\nbe re-wrapped.]","title":"A Discourse Upon the Origin and the Foundation of the Inequality Among Mankind","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":26821}