A Discourse Upon The Origin And The Foundation Of The Inequality Among Mankind

By J. J. Rousseau


QUESTION PROPOSED BY THE ACADEMY OF DIJON

What is the origin of inequality among mankind, and is inequality natural?

To answer this question, I must speak of men to men; only those men who are not afraid of honouring truth belong in discussions of this kind. I maintain confidence in the cause of mankind, I stand up in its defence, and I shall be happy if I behave in a manner worthy of my subject and of my judges.

I conceive of two types of inequality among men. One I call natural (or physical) inequality, because it is established by nature. Natural inequality consists of differences in age, health, strength, and intelligence. The other inequality may be termed moral (or political) inequality, because it depends on convention, and is established, or at least authorized, by the common consent of mankind. Moral inequality consists of different privileges, which some men enjoy, to the prejudice of others, such as being richer, more honoured, more powerful, and even that of exacting obedience from others.

It is absurd to ask, “What is the cause of natural inequality?” The bare definition of natural inequality answers the question. It would be more absurd still to ask, “Might there be some connection between the two species of inequality?” This would be the same as asking if those who command are better men than those who obey, or if power or riches are always found in individuals in proportion to their strength of body or of mind, or to their wisdom or virtue. This is a question fit perhaps to be discussed by slaves in earshot of their masters, but unbecoming of free and reasonable men in quest of the truth.

What is the subject of this discourse? It is to point out that moment in history when, rights taking the place of violence, nature became subject to law. It is to show that chain of surprising events, which resulted in the strong serving the weak and people purchasing imaginary ease at the expense of real happiness.

The philosophers who have examined the foundations of society have, every one of them, perceived the necessity of tracing it back to a state of nature, but not one of them has ever arrived there. Some of them have attributed to man in the state of nature the ideas of justice and injustice, without troubling their heads to prove that man really had such ideas, or even that such ideas were useful to him. Others have spoken of the natural right of every man to keep what belongs to him, without letting us know what they mean by the word “belong.” Others still, without further ceremony, have granted the strongest men authority over the weakest, and have removed government from nature, without considering the time required for men to understand the things signified by the words “authority” and “government.” All of them are constantly harping on about wants, cravings, oppressions, desires, and pride. They all have transferred to the state of nature ideas picked up in the bosom of society. In speaking of savages, they described citizens. A few even seem to doubt that a state of nature ever actually existed. They claim that even though nature plainly appears in the Garden of Eden, the first man was immediately given both instructions and precepts by God, and so never lived in the state of nature. They claim that even if we give to the books of Moses credit which every Christian ought to give, we must deny that, even before the deluge, a state of nature ever existed among men. This is a claim difficult to maintain, and impossible to prove.

Let us begin by putting aside facts, for they do not affect the question. The task in which I am engaged is not to look for historical truths, but to use reason to illustrate the nature of things. Religion commands us to believe that men, having been drawn out of a state of nature, are unequal, because this is God’s will. But religion does not stop us from drawing conclusions based solely on the nature of man, and extrapolating from that to the nature of the beings which surround him. This is the question I will examine here. As mankind in general has an interest in this question, I shall try to use a language suitable to all nations. I will ignore the circumstances of this particular time and place in order to think of nothing but the men I speak to. I shall imagine myself in the Lyceum of Athens, with the Platos and the Xenocrates of that famous seat of philosophy as my judges, and with the whole of the human species as my audience.

O reader, whatever country you belong to, whatever your opinions may be, attend to my words. You shall hear your history as I have understood it, not from books composed by those like you, for they are liars, but from the book of nature, which never lies. All that I repeat after her must be true, without any lies except where I may unintentionally add them. I am going to speak of remote times. How much you have changed from what you once were! I am going to write about the life of the human species, about the qualities you have received from your species, and which your education and your habits could change but not destroy. There is a state of society in which you would choose to stop any further changes. As you read, you will look out for that state, at which, if you had your wish, our species would have stopped. Uneasy at your present condition, you will perhaps wish it were in your power to go back. This wish ought to be interpreted as a compliment to your ancestors, a condemnation of your contemporaries, and a source of terror to all those who may have the misfortune of succeeding you.




FIRST PART

It might be important, in order to form a proper judgment of the natural state of man, to consider his origin, and to examine him at the beginning of the species. However, I shall not trace the evolution of man and his approach to perfection. I shall not examine what he might have been in the beginning. I shall not inquire whether, as Aristotle thinks, his nails used to be crooked talons, whether his whole body used to be covered with thick, bear-like hair, and whether he used to walk upon all-fours, his eyes directed to the earth. I could only form vague and almost imaginary conjectures on this subject. The study of evolution is not yet sufficiently advanced to form solid foundations for such conjectures. For this reason, without paying any attention to the changes that must have happened to the interior and exterior of man's body as he applied himself to new purposes, I shall suppose his body to have always been what it is now. I shall suppose that he always walked on two feet, made the same use of his hands that we do of ours, extended his gaze over the whole face of nature, and measured with his eyes the vast extent of the heavens.

If I strip man of all the supernatural gifts he may have received and of all the artificial powers which he could only have acquired by slow degrees, then I consider him as he was created by the hands of nature. I see an animal less strong than some, and less active than others, but, upon the whole, the most advantageously organized of any. I see him satisfying the calls of hunger under the first oak, and those of thirst at the first rivulet. I see him laying down to sleep at the foot of the same tree that afforded him his meal; and behold, this done, all his wants are completely supplied.

The earth, left to its own and covered with immense woods, offers at every step food and shelter to every species of animals. Men, dispersed among them, observe and imitate the animals’ hard work. Whereas every species of animals is confined to one peculiar instinct, man, who perhaps has no instinct that particularly belongs to him, appropriates those of all other animals, which allows him to find his subsistence with more ease than any of them.

Men are accustomed from their infancy to inclement weather and rigorous seasons, and obliged to defend, naked and without arms, their life and their prey against the other wild inhabitants of the forest, or at least to avoid their fury by flight. Children, who are born with the excellent constitution of their parents, strengthen it and attain all the vigour that the human frame is capable of. Nature treats them exactly in the same manner that Sparta treated the children of her citizens: those who come well formed into the world she renders strong and robust, and destroys all the rest. Nature differs in this respect from our societies, which permits children to become burdensome to their parents, and thus effectively murders them all without distinction.

His body being the only instrument the savage man has, he employs it to different uses, of which we are incapable. We can thank our industry for the loss of that strength and agility. If he had a hatchet, would his hand so easily snap off from an oak so stout a branch? If he had a sling, would it dart a stone to so great a distance? If he had a ladder, would he run so nimbly up a tree? If he had a horse, would he with such swiftness shoot along the plain? Give civilized man time to gather all his machines, and there is no doubt he will overpower the savage, but if you want to see an even more unequal contest, place them naked and unarmed opposite each other. You will discover the advantage of having all our forces at our disposal, being constantly prepared against all events, and always carrying ourselves as if we were whole and entire.

Hobbes claims that man is fearless, and always attacking and fighting. An illustrious philosopher thinks otherwise, and Cumberland and Puffendorff agree, that nothing is more fearful than man in a state of nature, that he is always alert and ready to fly at the first motion he see or at the first noise he hears. This may be true for unfamiliar objects. I have no doubt man in nature is terrified at every new sight, as often he cannot predict the good or evil which he may expect from an unfamiliar object, nor compare his strength with the unfamiliar dangers he has to encounter. But savage man eventually finds himself left with no option but to measure his strength against other animals, and upon finding that he is more intelligent than they are strong, he learns not to be afraid. Put a bear or a wolf in front of any savage with stones and a good stick, and the danger is at least equal on both sides. After several such fights, wild beasts, who are not fond of attacking each other, will not be very fond of attacking man, who is as wild as they are. Even if an animal has much more strength than man, man can survive like other weaker species do. Man is as fast as other weaker species and can find in every tree an almost inviolable asylum. To this we may add that no animal naturally makes war upon man, except in the case of self-defence or extreme hunger, nor does any animal ever treat man as if he were intended by nature to be food for predators.

But there are other more formidable enemies, against which man is defenceless, such as infancy, old age, and sickness. The first two are common to all animals, while the last applies only to man living in society. With respect to infancy, a human mother able to carry her child with her can more easily nurse her child, than the females of other species, who cannot look for their own subsistence and feed their young ones at the same time. If the human mother perishes, her child might perish as well, but this danger is common to a hundred other species, and if our infancy is longer than theirs, our life is similarly longer too; in this respect too, all things are almost equal. There are other concerns about infancy, such as the number of young of man and other animals, but those concerns are not related to my subject. With respect to old age, the demand for food decreases in proportion to the ability to find food. A savage life exempts the old from diseases like gout and rheumatism. Old age cannot be alleviated, but in a state of nature, the old would pass away, without being noticed by others, and almost without noticing it themselves.

With respect to sickness, I shall not repeat the vain and false statements healthy men use to discredit medicine. I shall only ask if there are any observations from which we may conclude that, in those countries where medicine is not used, the average lifespan is shorter than in those countries where medicine is most used? How could that possibly be the case, if we in society can inflict more diseases upon ourselves than medicine cure! Just look at the extreme inequalities in the standard of living between different classes, the excessive laziness of some versus the hard work of others, the ability to deny and satisfy our appetites, the exquisite ailments of the rich, the unwholesome food of the poor, and the impulses that tempt the poor to eat greedily and overconsume. Society has excesses of every kind, immoderate passions, fatigues, waste of spirits; there are infinite pains and anxieties attached to every condition, and the mind of man is constantly preyed upon by all of these. Most of our ills are of our own making, and we might have avoided them by adhering to the simple, uniform, and solitary way of life prescribed to us by nature. Nature intended that we should always enjoy good health. I daresay that a state of reflection is a state against nature, and that the man who meditates is a depraved animal. Just think of the good health of savages, at least of those we have not destroyed with liquor. They are strangers to almost every disease, except those caused by wounds and old age. I am convinced that the history of human diseases is connected to that of civil societies. Plato agreed, and concluded from remedies used at the Siege of Troy, that several disorders known at his time were not known among men at that remote period.

Man in a state of nature, where there are so few sicknesses, has no need for medicine, and still less need for doctors. In this respect, man is similar to any other species of animals. Ask hunters whether during their hunts they meet with many sick or feeble animals. They meet many formerly wounded animals, whose wounds have been perfectly well healed. They meet many animals whose bones were formerly broken and whose limbs were almost torn off, whose bones and limbs have completely knit and united with no medical regimen but their usual way of living. These cures were not the less effective for their not having been tortured with incisions, poisoned with drugs, or worn out by diet and abstinence. However useful medicine may be to us in society, it is clear that the sick savage, even though he has nothing to hope from nature, has nothing to fear from any disease. This often renders his situation preferable to ours.

Let us be careful about confusing the savage man with the men we see daily. Nature behaves differently towards animals left in her care. The horse, the cat, the bull, and even the donkey, generally have a higher stature, a more robust constitution, more vigour, more strength, and more courage in their forests than in our houses. They lose half these advantages by becoming domestic animals. All our kind treatment has served only to bastardize them. It is thus with man himself. As he becomes sociable and a slave to others, he also becomes weak, fearful, and mean-spirited. His soft and effeminate way of living completes the destruction of his strength and of his courage. In addition, there is a larger difference between a savage man and a domestic man than there is between a savage beast and a domestic beast, because domestic men indulge themselves more than they indulge domestic beasts.

Clothes and houses, which we consider very necessary, are not such necessities to these primitive men, and their lack is not any obstacle to their survival. Men in nature do not need clothing in warm climates, and in cold climates they soon learn to use the fur of animals they have killed. They have two hands to defend themselves with, and provide for all their wants with. It takes a great deal of time and trouble for their children to learn to walk, but their mothers can carry them with ease in the meantime. This is an advantage other species do not have, because the mother in other species, when pursued, must either abandon her young or slow down with them. We must consider these circumstances, when asking why the first man made himself clothes and a cabin, when he had lived without them until then?

Alone, idle, and always surrounded by danger, savage man must sleep lightly like other animals, who think little and may be said to be asleep whenever they are not thinking. Self-preservation is savage man’s only concern, and he must use those abilities that are most serviceable in attacking and defending. In contrast, those abilities which only softness and sensuality can improve must remain neglected. His sight, hearing, and smelling are subtle, and his touch and taste are equally coarse. Such is the animal state in general, and according to travellers, it is that of most savage nations. The Hottentots of the Cape of Good Hope can see with their naked eyes ships on the ocean, at as great a distance as the Dutch can see them with their glasses. The natives of America tracked the Spaniards with their noses, as the best dogs could have done. All these nations support nakedness without pain, use large quantities of peppers to give their food a relish, and drink the strongest liquors of Europe like water.

So far I have considered man’s physical capacity; let us now examine him in a metaphysical and moral light.

Any animal is an ingenious machine, with senses to wind itself up and guard against everything that might destroy it. The human machine is similar, with the difference that nature alone controls the beast, whereas man can control himself to some extent. An animal chooses by instinct, a man by an act of free will. The animal cannot deviate from prescribed rules, even where such deviation might be useful; man often deviates from prescribed rules. A pigeon would starve next to the best meat, and a cat on a heap of fruit or corn, even though both could stay alive by eating the food they reject. Dissolute men run into excesses, which lead to fevers and death, because the mind ignores the senses, and the will still continues to dictate.

All animals must have ideas, since all animals have senses; they even combine their ideas to a degree. It is only the size of such degree that differs between man and beast. Some philosophers have even proposed that there is a greater difference between men, than between some men and some beasts. It is not therefore the capacity to think that distinguishes man from animal, as his being a free agent. Nature speaks to all animals, and beasts obey her voice. Man hears the same voice, but he perceives that he is free to resist or to acquiesce. It is in the consciousness of this liberty that the spirituality of his soul chiefly appears. Science explains how senses work and ideas form, but in the power of willing and in the consciousness of this power, nothing can be discovered but purely spiritual acts that cannot be accounted for by the laws of mechanics.

But though there is some room to dispute this difference between man and beast, there is another very specific quality that distinguishes them and will admit of no dispute: this is the faculty of improvement. The faculty of improvement unfolds all the other faculties, and resides among not only the human species, but in the individuals that compose it. A beast is, at the end of some months, all he ever will be for the rest of his life; his species is, at the end of a thousand years, precisely what it was in the first year of that long period. Why is man alone subject to dotage? Is it not because he thus returns to his primitive condition? And because, while the beast has acquired nothing and has nothing to lose, man, losing by old age or accident all the improvements he made during his lifetime, falls back even lower than beasts themselves? It is a melancholy necessity for us to admit that this distinctive and almost unlimited faculty is the source of all of man's misfortunes. It is this faculty which slowly draws men out of their original condition, in which his days would slide away in peace and innocence. It is this faculty which, throughout the ages, produces his discoveries and mistakes, his virtues and his vices, and renders him both his own and nature's tyrant. It would be shocking to commend whoever first suggested to the Oronoco Indians the use of those boards which they bind to the temples of their children, which at least let them enjoy some of their natural imbecility and happiness.

Savage man, abandoned by nature to pure instinct, protected from faculties capable of raising him a great deal higher, would begin with functions that were merely animal: to see and to feel like other animals. To will and not to will, to wish and to fear, would be the first and the only operations of his soul, till new circumstances occasioned new developments.

Let moralists say that human understanding is caused by human passions, which in turn are universally understood to be caused by human understanding. Our passions improve our reasons; we covet knowledge because we covet enjoyment. It is impossible to conceive why a man exempt from fears and desires should take the trouble to reason. The passions, in turn, owe their origin to our wants, and their increase to our progress in science. To desire or fear anything, we must know about it or have instincts about it. Savage man, destitute of knowledge, experiences no passions but those caused by instincts; his desires never extend beyond his physical wants such as food, a female, and rest, and he fears no evil but pain and hunger. I say pain and not death because no animal will ever know about death, and the knowledge of death is one of the first facts acquired by man.

I could easily, if required to, cite facts to show that the progress of the mind has kept pace with the increase in wants to which men have been exposed, and with the increase in passions which force men to fulfill these wants. I could point to Egypt with the arts starting up and extending along the inundations of the Nile. I could point to the Greeks, where the wants were seen to bud forth, grow, and rise to the heavens, in the midst of the sands and rocks of Attica without being able to take root on the fertile banks of the Eurotas. In general, the inhabitants of the north are more industrious than those of the south, as if nature thus meant to make all things equal by giving to the mind that fertility she denied to the soil.

But even if I exclude the uncertain testimonies of history, everything seems to remove from savage man the temptation to alter his condition, and the means of doing so. His imagination paints nothing for him; his heart asks nothing from him. His moderate wants are so easily supplied with what he readily finds, and he is so far from the knowledge required to covet more that he can have neither foresight nor curiosity. He is indifferent to the spectacle of nature, because it is so familiar. It is constantly the same order, constantly the same revolutions. He does not have enough sense to feel surprise at the sight of the greatest wonders, and his mind does not know how to observe what he has seen every day. His soul, which nothing disturbs, gives itself up entirely to the consciousness of existence, without any thought of the future. His projects, equally confined, scarcely extend to the end of the day. Even at present, this is the degree of foresight of man in the Caribbean: he sells his cotton bed in the morning, and in the evening, with tears in his eyes, buys it back, not having foreseen that he would want it again.

The more we think about this, the wider the distance between mere sensation and the most simple knowledge becomes. It is impossible to conceive how man, by his own powers, without communication, without the spur of necessity, could have bridged so great a gap. How many years passed before men beheld any fire but that of the heavens? How many different accidents must have happened? How often did they let a fire go out, before they knew the art of lighting one? How often have these secrets perished with the discoverer? What about agriculture, which requires so much labour and foresight, which depends upon other arts, which must be practiced in a society, and which does not draw nutrition but instead oblige earth to produce things we like best? Let us suppose that men had multiplied so much that the earth was no longer sufficient to support them. Let us suppose that farm tools had dropped from the sky into the hands of savages. Let us suppose that these men overcame their aversion of constant labour, that they learned to forecast their wants, that they had learned how to break the earth, seed it, and plant trees, that they learned to grind corn and ferment grapes. After all this, what man would be mad enough to cultivate a field, knowing that he may be robbed by the first comer, man or beast, who takes a fancy to the fruits of his labor. Would any man spend his day in labour, when the rewards of his labour were so precarious? How could this situation incentivize men to cultivate earth that was not parcelled out among them in a state of nature?

Even if we suppose savage man was intelligent and enlightened, or even a philosopher, discovering the sublimest truths and forming maxims of justice and reason, what benefit would the species receive from all these metaphysical discoveries, which could not be communicated to others? What progress could mankind make in the forests, scattered up and down among the other animals? To what degree could men mutually improve and enlighten each other, when they had no fixed home or tribe, when they rarely met the same person twice, and upon meeting never spoke?

Consider how many ideas we owe to the use of speech. Consider how much grammar exercises the mind. Reflect on the immense labor and time the invention of languages must have required. Now we may judge how many thousand ages must have been needed to develop the functions the human mind is now capable of performing.

I beg leave to stop one moment to consider the origin of languages. I do not repeat here the research done by the Abbe de Condillac, which confirms my thoughts, and perhaps even shaped them. That philosopher supposes what I doubt, a kind of society already established among the inventors of languages. I think it my duty to give my own thoughts in addition to his. First, how languages could become necessary, when there was no correspondence between men, nor the least necessity for any? There is no chance that language would have been invented if it was dispensable. Languages are the fruit of the domestic intercourse between fathers, mothers, and children, but this also does not answer the question. Relying on this would commit the same fault as those who, reasoning about the state of nature, transfer to it ideas collected in society such as families as living together under one roof, and their members observing among themselves an intimate and permanent union. These families exist in a civil state, where so many common interests unite them, while in the state of nature, as there were neither houses nor cabins nor any kind of property, every one took up lodging at random, seldom continued more than one night in the same place, had sex without any premeditated design, and did not need language to make known their thoughts to each other. In the state of nature, the mother suckled her newborn children for her own sake her infants out of love and affection when habit made them dear to her, but as soon as they gained enough strength to find food, they separated from her of their own accord. As they had no method of not losing each other, they soon forgot each other so deeply as not even to remember each other when they happened to meet again. Furthermore, in nature, the child had more wants to explain to his mother, than his mother had anything to say to him. It is the child that needs the invention of language, and it is the child who creates the language; this makes the number of languages equal to the number of children who speak them, and the number of languages is further increased by their vagabond kind of life which allows no idiom time to acquire consistency. To say that the mother would teach the child the words he must use may explain how already formed languages are taught, but it does not show us how they are first formed.

Let us suppose we have solved the problem of the origin of language, and let us examine how languages could begin to be established. This is a new, more stubborn, problem than the previous one. If men needed speech to learn to think, they must have needed thought more to invent speech. We can imagine how the sounds of voice became symbols of our ideas, but we would still not be any nearer to knowing who could have created the correspondence between sounds and ideas. We can scarcely form any theories about the birth of the art of communicating our thoughts, a sublime art which philosophers think is still at a prodigious distance from perfection that it might never arrive there. Societies consecrate themselves, entirely and for long periods of time, to the study of this intricate art.

The first language of man, the most universal and energetic of all languages, before anyone found it necessary to persuade assembled groups, was the cry of nature. This cry was always the result of instinct in urgent situations, to implore assistance in great danger or relief in great sufferings. It was of little use in the more common occurrences of life, where more moderate sentiments prevail. When the ideas of men began to multiply, they worked to create a more extensive language; they multiplied the inflections of the voice and added expressive gestures whose meaning did not depend on any prior assignment of acts to ideas. Therefore, they expressed visible and movable objects by gestures and sounds by imitative sounds. But as gestures can only express objects that are present or easily described, and visible actions. They cannot be used generally, since darkness or the interposition of an opaque medium renders them useless. Besides, they require attention rather than excite it. Thus, men thought about substituting gestures with speech, which is not directly related to determinate object and is thus fitter to represent all our ideas. At first, speech must have been difficult to practise, because men’s speech organs had received no exercise. This substitution could only have been made by common consent. The substitution is difficult to imagine, since the unanimous agreement must have been expressed, and speech therefore appears to be a prerequisite to establish the use of speech.

The first words signified a more extensive set of ideas than those used in modern languages. Savage men were ignorant about the division of speech into its constituent parts. At first, they gave every word the meaning of an entire proposition. Afterwards, they began to perceive the difference between the subject and attribute and between verb and noun. These distinctions required effort, to move forward from the first language where many words were proper names, the infinitive was the only tense, and adjectives were difficult to develop since every adjective is an abstract word and abstraction is an unnatural and very painful operation.

At first they gave every object a peculiar name, without any regard to its group which they were in no condition to distinguish; every individual stood alone as it stands in nature. If they called one oak “A,” they called another oak “B,” so their dictionary became large even though their knowledge of things was confined. It must have been a difficult task to get rid of such a diffuse nomenclature in order to marshal several beings under generic denominations. It was necessary to know their properties and their differences, to know observations and definitions, and to understand natural history and metaphysics, all advantages which the men of these times did not enjoy.

General ideas cannot be conveyed to the mind without words, nor the mind understand them without propositions. This is one of the reasons why mere animals cannot form such ideas. When a monkey leaves without hesitation one nut for another, should we think he has any general idea of that kind of fruit and that he compares these two individual bodies with his archetype of them? No: the sight of one of these nuts calls back to his memory the sensations he received from another and his eyes warn his palate of the taste it is going to receive. Every general idea is purely intellectual; let the imagination tamper with it ever so little, and it immediately becomes a particular idea. Try to imagine a tree in general and you never will be able to do it; in spite of all your efforts it will appear big or little, thin or tufted, of a bright or a deep colour. If you tried to see nothing in it that is not general, then such a picture would no longer resemble any tree. Perfectly abstract beings are similarly not perceivable, and are only conceivable with the assistance of speech. The definition of a triangle alone gives you a general idea of that figure; the moment you form a triangle in your mind, it is this or that particular triangle and no other, and you cannot avoid giving breadth to its lines and colour to its area. We must therefore make use of propositions, and we must therefore speak to have general ideas. The moment the imagination stops, the mind must stop too, if not assisted by speech. If the first inventors could give names only to ideas they already had, then the first substantives must have been proper names.

But when our new grammarians began to extend their ideas and generalize their words, their ignorance must have confined them to narrow bounds. Just as, first, they had used too many proper names because they did not know the distinctions of genus and species, now, they made too few distinctions of genus and species when considering all the differences between beings. To push the classification far enough, they must have had more knowledge and experience than we suspect, and have done more work than we thought they would be willing to do. If even today we discover new species, previously unobserved, how many species must have escaped the notice of savage men who only paid attention to first appearances? As to primitive classes and general notions, these must have likewise been overlooked. How, for example, could they have understood the following words: matter, spirit, substance, mode, figure, and motion? Even our philosophers, who have been constantly using these terms, can themselves scarcely understand them. The ideas represented by these words are purely metaphysical, and no models of them could be found in nature.

I stop now and ask my judges to pause to consider what a great way language has still to go, even in invention of physical substantives which are the easiest part of language to invent. Language can still improve to be able to express all the of man’s sentiments, to assume an invariable form, to bear being spoken in public, and to influence society. I earnestly entreat my judges to consider how much time and knowledge must have been needed to discover numbers, abstract words, the aorists and all the other tenses of verbs, the particles, the syntax, and the method of connecting propositions and arguments to form all the logic of discourse. I am scared that the difficulties multiply at every step, and convinced that the demonstrated impossibility of the birth and spread of languages could not have resulted from merely human means. I leave to anyone interested this difficult problem: "which was necessary: society to invent languages, or languages to form society?"

We may infer from the little care nature has spent in bringing men together and making the use of speech easy, how little she has done towards making them social and how little she has contributed to anything they themselves have done to become so. In fact, it is impossible to conceive, why man in nature should need the help of another more than a monkey or a wolf needing the help of another of the same species. Even if man did need help, why would another to assist him, and how could the assistee and the assister agree among themselves upon the conditions of providing help? Authors are continually telling us that in this state man would have been a most miserable creature. If it is true, as I believe I have proved, that he continued many ages without the desire or the opportunity to emerge from this state, their assertion only serves to justify a charge against nature, and not any against the man nature created. But, “miserable” is a word that means a deprivation causing pain and suffering. What kind of misery can be felt by a free being, whose heart enjoys perfect peace, and body perfect health? And which is likelier to become insupportable to those who enjoy it, a civil or a natural life? In civil life, we meet no one who does not complain of his existence; many even throw away as much of it as they can, and divine and human laws united can hardly control this disorder. Was ever any free savage as tempted to complain of life or lay violent hands on himself? Let us judge with less pride which existence causes real misery. Nothing could be more unhappy than the savage man, when he was dazzled by knowledge, racked by passions, and reasoning about a state different from that in which he lived. It was a very wise Providence that ensured man’s ability to think would only develop itself in proportion to the occasions to exercise it, lest the ability be superfluous or troublesome to him when he did not need it, or tardy and useless when he did. He had in his instinct alone everything needed to live in a state of nature; in his cultivated reason he has barely what is necessary to live in a state of society.

It appears at first sight that, as there were no moral relations between men in nature, they could be neither good nor bad. Savage man had neither vices nor virtues, unless we define vices as acts detrimental to self-preservation and virtues acts which contribute to self-preservation. (In that case we would have to consider most virtuous the man who had least resistance to the impulses of nature.) But without deviating from the usual meaning of these words, we should suspend our judgement and prejudice until we have examined whether there are more virtues or vices among civilized men, or whether the improvement in their reasoning compensates for the damage they do to each other, or whether civilized man would be happier in nature with nothing to fear or to hope from anyone than in civilization where he has submitted to a universal subserviency, and has obliged himself to depend for everything upon the goodwill of those who do not think themselves obliged to give anything.

But above all, let us be careful of agreeing with Hobbes that man, having no idea of goodness, must be naturally bad, that he is vicious because he does not know virtue, that he refuses to help those of his own species because he believes none is due to them, that he claims everything he wants and foolishly looks upon himself as proprietor of the whole universe. Hobbes very plainly saw the flaws in the modern definition of natural right, but the conclusions he draws are equally flawed. I argue that the state of nature, where self-preservation interfered least with the preservation of others, was most favourable to peace and most suitable to mankind. Hobbes argues the opposite because he claims the savage man cares about the satisfaction of numberless passions, which are really caused by society and have rendered laws necessary. A bad man, he says, is a robust child. But this does not prove that savage man is a robust child, and even if we grant that he was, what could one infer from that? Even if savage man, when robust, depended on others as much as he did when feeble, he would not be guilty of any excess. He would not hesitate to hit his mother when she delayed feeding him slightly; he would claw and bite and strangle without remorse his younger brother if his brother jostled or disturbed him. But to be robust and dependent are two contradictory suppositions in the state of nature. Man is weak when dependent, and his own master when robust. Hobbes did not consider that the same barrier which stops savages from using their reason, stops them from using their reason for evil, so we can say that savages are not bad precisely because they don't know what it is to be good. It is neither the development of their reasoning nor the restraints of the law, but their calmness and their ignorance of vice that stops them from being evil: tantus plus in illis proficit vitiorum ignorantia, quam in his cognito virtutis. There is another principle that has escaped Hobbes: the blind and impulsive acts of self-love and the desire of self-preservation are allayed by an innate abhorrence to see other men suffer. No one shall contradict me in granting to man the natural and universal virtue of pity. Pity is a virtue useful to man, as it replaces in him all manner of reflection, and a virtue so natural, that beasts themselves sometimes give signs of it. All mothers feel tenderness for their young, and face dangers to screen them from danger. Horses are reluctant to trample upon living bodies; one animal never passes by the dead carcass of another of the same species unmoved; some animals even bury their dead fellows; cattle low mournfully upon entering the slaughter-house. Bernard Mandeville, the author of The Fable of The Bees, acknowledged man is a compassionate and sensible being. Mandeville confirms this with an example in his cold and subtle style, about a man with his hands tied up, who is obliged to watch a predator tear a child from the arms of his mother, grind the tender limbs with his teeth, and rend the throbbing entrails of the innocent victim with his claws. What horrible emotions such a spectator must experience, even though the event does not personally concern him? What anguish must he suffer at not being able to assist the fainting mother or the expiring infant?

Such is the force of natural pity, which appears before any reflection, which the most dissolute manners have found so difficult to extinguish since we see everyday men in theatres who sympathize with the unfortunate and weep at their sufferings, even though these men, if given a chance, would torment their enemies. Mandeville understood that men would never have been better than monsters, if nature had not given them pity along with reason, but he did not understand that from this quality alone flow all the social virtues he disputes mankind possesses. What is generosity, clemency, or humanity, but pity applied to the weak, the guilty, or the human species at large? Even benevolence and friendship are the results of a constant pity fixed upon a particular object. What is it to wish that a person may not suffer, but to wish that he may be happy? Though it is true that commiseration is an obscure sentiment which puts us in the place of he who suffers, this notion makes the truth I advance more evident. In fact, commiseration must be more energetic when an animal identifies himself with another that suffers distress. It is evident that this identification must have been infinitely more perfect in the state of nature than in the state of reason. It is reason that engenders self-love, and reflection that strengthens it; it is reason that makes man shrink into himself; it is reason that keeps him aloof from everything that can trouble or afflict him; it is philosophy that destroys his connections with other men; it is philosophy that makes him mutter to himself at the sight of another in distress, “You may perish for all I care, nothing can hurt me.” Nothing less than evils which threaten the whole species can disturb the calm sleep of the philosopher and force him from his bed. One man may murder another under his windows with impunity; he will do nothing but clap his hands to his ears, argue a little with himself to hinder nature, and stop himself from identifying with the unhappy sufferer. Savage man wants this admirable talent; for want of wisdom and reason, the savage man is always ready to foolishly obey the first whispers of humanity. In riots and street-brawls, the populace flock together, while the prudent man sneaks off. The prudent ones are the dregs of society, the poor basket and barrow-women, that separate the combatants and hinder gentle folks from cutting one another's throats.

It is therefore certain that pity is a natural sentiment which, by moderating self-love, contributes to the mutual preservation of the whole species. It is pity which hurries us to the assistance of those we see in distress; it is pity which, in a state of nature, stands for laws, manners, and virtue, with the advantage that no one is tempted to disobey her sweet and gentle voice; it is pity which stops a robust savage from plundering a feeble child or infirm old man, if he has any prospect of providing for himself by other means; it is pity which, instead of that sublime maxim of argumentative justice, “Do to others as you would have others do to you,” inspires all men with that other less perfect but more useful maxim of natural goodness, “Find your own happiness with as little harm as you can do to that of others.” It is in pity, rather than in fine-spun arguments, that we must look for the cause of the reluctance to do evil. Though it may give peculiar happiness to Socrates and other geniuses of his stamp to reason themselves into virtue, the human species would have ceased to exist long ago had it depended for its preservation on the individuals’ reason.

Men in nature, wild rather than wicked, were not exposed to any dangerous dissensions. They kept up no correspondence with each other and were strangers to vanity, respect, esteem, and contempt. They had no notion of what we call Meum et Tuum, nor any idea of justice, as they thought violence is as an evil to be repaired, and not an injury deserving punishment. They never dreamed of revenge, unless automatically and unpremeditatedly, like a dog who bites the stone that has been thrown at him. Their disputes were seldom accompanied by bloodshed, and were never caused by a bigger stake than subsistence. But there is a more dangerous subject of contention.

Among the passions which ruffle man’s heart, there is a hot and impetuous one which renders the sexes necessary to each other. This is a terrible passion which despises all dangers, bears down against all obstacles, and considers it proper to destroy the human species which it is destined to preserve. What must become of men abandoned to this lawless and brutal passion, without modesty or shame?

We must first acknowledge that the more violent the passions, the more necessary laws to restrain them. But these passions give rise to disorders and crimes in society, so our laws to control them are insufficient as well. We would do well to look back a little further and examine if these evils are not the result of the laws themselves, because though the laws are capable of repressing these evils, it is to be expected that laws could stop the progress of mischief which they themselves produced.

Let us begin by distinguishing between what is moral and what is physical in the passion called love. The moral part is that which creates that desire and fixes it upon a particular object, almost to the exclusion of all others. The physical part is the general desire which prompts the sexes to unite with each other. It is easy to perceive that the moral part of love is a factitious sentiment created by society and popularized by women in order to establish their empire and increase their power. This sentiment, being founded on notions of beauty and merit which a savage is not capable of having and upon comparisons which he is not capable of making, can scarcely exist in him. His mind was never in a condition to form abstract ideas of regularity and proportion, and similarly his heart is not in a condition to feel admiration and love, which are produced by our application of abstract ideas. Savage man listens solely to the instincts implanted in him by nature, and not to tastes he never acquired, so every woman answers his purpose.

Confined entirely to the physical aspects of love and happy enough not to know preferences which sharpen the appetite for it and increase the difficulty of satisfying this appetite, men in nature must be subject to fewer and less violent fits of that passion. Of course, there must be fewer and less violent disputes among them as a result. The imagination which causes so many ravages among us never speaks to the heart of savages, who peacefully wait for and yield to the impulses of nature.

It is evident that society has added to love and all the other passions an impetuous ardour which so often renders these passions fatal to mankind. It is ridiculous to represent savages as constantly murdering each other, as this opinion is diametrically opposite to experience. For example, the Caribbeans, who have deviated little from the state of nature, are the most peaceable and least jealous in their amours, even though they live in a burning climate which seems to add to the activity of these passions.

Comparisons may be drawn to several other species who cover our yards with blood, and in spring particularly, cause our forests to ring with the noise they make in disputing their females. We must begin by excluding all those species where nature has clearly established relations different from those which exist among us. Thus, we can deduce nothing from cockfights that will affect the human species. In other species, battles may arise entirely due to the fewness of females compared with males, or to time intervals during which females constantly refuse the addresses of the males; neither of these cases is applicable to the human species, where the number of females generally surpasses that of males, and where, even among savages, the females have never had fixed times of passion and indifference. Besides, among several of these animals, the whole species is in heat all at once, and nothing is to be done but confusion, tumult, disorder and bloodshed; this is a state unknown to the human species where love is never periodic. We can not conclude from the battles of other animals for the possession of females that man would act the same way in a state of nature. We might conclude, that because these contests do not destroy the other species, they would not be fatal to ours even if they existed. It is very probable that these contests would cause fewer ravages in nature than they do in society, especially in those countries where morality leads to jealous lovers and vengent lovers, who produce duels, murders and even worse crimes, where fidelity only propagates adultery, and where continence and honour increase dissoluteness and abortions.

In conclusion, savage man was wandering about in the forests, without industry, speech, and any fixed residence, an equal stranger to war and social connection, without any need of his fellows or any desire of hurting them, subject to few passions, and finding in himself all he wants. Let us conclude that savage man had no knowledge or sentiment that was not proper to his condition, was aware of his real necessities, and took notice only of what it was in his interest to see. His understanding made as little progress as his vanity. If he made any discovery, he could not communicate it as he did not even know his children. The art perished with the inventor. There was neither education nor improvement. Generations succeeded generations to no purpose. Whole centuries experienced the rudeness and barbarity of the first age. The species was grown old, while the individual still remained in a state of childhood.

I have talked so much about my conception of this primitive condition, it is my duty to extirpate ancient errors and inveterate prejudices. It is my duty to dig deep and show a true picture of the state of nature, where even natural inequality does not have the influence which our writers ascribe to it.

In fact, we may easily see that, among the so-called natural differences which distinguish men, several are merely the result of habit and the different kinds of life adopted by men in a society. Thus, a robust or delicate constitution, are produced more often by a man’s hardy or effeminate upbringing, than by his primitive constitution. Thus, education not only produces a difference between minds which are cultivated and those which are not, but even increases the differences between cultivated minds, because when a giant and a dwarf set out on the same path, the giant acquires a new advantage over the dwarf at every step. If we compare the variety in the education and manner of living of different men with the simplicity and uniformity that prevails in the savage life, we shall easily see how much the difference between men in the state of nature must be less than the difference between men in the state of society. Every unequal societal institution increases the natural inequalities of the human species.

Though nature could distribute all her gifts unequally, what advantage could the most favoured derive from her partiality in a state of things which scarcely admits any relations between humans? What is the use of beauty where there is no love? What use is wit to those who don’t speak? Or craft to those who have no transactions? Authors are constantly crying out that the strongest would oppress the weakest. Let them explain what they mean by the word “oppression.” In society, one man can rule with violence while another groans under constant subjection. But I don't see how oppression can be applied to savage men, who don’t even understand the words “domination” and “servitude.” One savage man might steal the fruits, game, or shelter of another, but how could he ever get obedience from another? What chains of dependence can there be among men who possess nothing? If savage man is driven from one tree, he just has to find another. Suppose a savage man meets another who is stronger and wicked, who obliges the man to provide for his subsistence while he remains idle. The wicked man must not take his eyes from his servant a single moment and must bind his servant before taking a nap, or his servant will kill him or slip away; let him become even a little less vigilant, and the servant is already hidden in the forest, never to be seen again. That is to say, the wicked man must take greater troubles than what he seeks to avoid.

Every one must see that, the bonds of servitude are formed by the mutual interdependence. It is impossible for one man to enslave another without first reducing the other to a condition in which he can not live without help. This condition does not exist in a state of nature, where every man is his own master, and where the law of the strongest is altogether vain and useless.

Having proven that inequality between men in a state of nature is almost imperceivable and has little influence, I now proceed to show its origin and trace its progress. Having shown that virtue and reasoning, could never be developed without the fortuitous concurrence of several foreign causes, I now proceed to consider the accidents which may have perfected human understanding, rendering man wicked by rendering him sociable, and at last bringing man to the society in which we now see them.

I must own that the events I am about to describe might have happened many different ways and I have guessed what really occurred. These conjectures are the most probable of all events that could have occurred, and they are the only means we have of discovering truth. Besides, the consequences I discuss will not be merely conjectural, since it is impossible to form any other system that would not give me the same conclusions.

It is the business of history, when faced with two facts that are connected by a chain of unknown intermediate facts, to furnish the unknown intermediate facts. It is the business of philosophy, when history is silent, to point out facts which may fulfill the same purpose. It is sufficient for me to offer my facts for the consideration of my judges. It is sufficient for me to have conducted my inquiry in a manner that saves common readers the trouble of considering unknown intermediate facts.




SECOND PART

The first man, who enclosed a piece of ground, said, "This is mine," and found people simple enough to believe him was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, wars, murders, misfortunes, and horrors, could someone have saved the human species by crying out at that time, “Do not to listen to this imposter. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong equally to us all, and the earth itself to nobody!” But it is highly probable that the advent of society was unstoppable. The idea of property depends on several prior ideas which could not form all at once in the human mind. Men must have made great progress, acquired a great stock of industry and knowledge, and transmitted and increased it from age to age before they could arrive at this stage. Let us therefore discuss in order this slow succession of events and mental improvements.

The first thought of man was about his existence, his first care was about preserving his existence. The earth gave him all the items he required; instinct prompted him to make use of them. Among the various appetites, there was one that excited him to perpetuate his species, and produced an animal act devoid of pure love or affection. The appetite satisfied, the sexes took no further notice of each other, and even the child ceased to have any tie to his mother once he no longer needed her help.

Such was the condition of infant man; such was the life of an animal confined to pure sensations. Far from harbouring any thought of forcing gifts from nature, he scarcely used what she offered him of her own accord. But soon difficulties arose, and he had to learn how to surmount them: some trees were too tall for him to reach their fruits, other animals were equally fond of the same fruits, and some fierce animals wanted to kill him. These circumstances obliged him to become active, swift-footed, and sturdy in battle. He used natural weapons such as stones and branches of trees. He learned to surmount the obstacles of nature, compete with other animals, fight other men for subsistence, and gain back whatever he lost to stronger foes.

As the human species grew more numerous, its pains multiplied. Different soils, climates, and seasons, forced men to live differently. Bad harvests, long and severe winters, and scorching summers required extraordinary labor to survive. On the seashore and banks of rivers, men invented the line and the hook and became fishermen. In the forests, men made themselves bows and arrows, and became huntsmen and warriors. In the cold countries, men covered themselves with the skins of the beasts they had killed. Thunder, a volcano, or some happy accident gave men fire, a new resource against the rigours of winter; they learned how to create and maintain fires, and how to use fire to cook the flesh of animals, which they used to devour raw from the carcass.

The repeated interactions between men and other men or animals, must have created in the mind of man the idea of certain relations. These relations (great, little, strong, weak, swift, slow, fearful, bold, and the like) almost automatically produced in him thoughts about the precautions he should take to remain safe.

This development increased his superiority over other animals, by making him aware of it. He laid traps to ensnare them, he played a thousand tricks upon them, and though several surpassed him in strength or swiftness, he became the master of those that could serve him and an enemy of those that could hurt him. That the first reflection produced the first emotion of pride in him. At a time he scarcely knew how to distinguish between the different ranks of existence, he attributed to the human species the first rank among animals in general. He prepared himself to create rankings among those of his own species.

Though other men were not as close to him as they are to us, and he had few interactions with them, he did not overlook them. He discovered similarities between them and him; they all behaved as himself would have done in similar circumstances. He concluded that their thoughts were similar to his own. This made him follow rules of conduct with others that increased his own safety and advantage.

Man knew from experience that happiness is the sole aim of all human actions. He found himself identifying the few situations in which working with others would increase his happiness, and the even fewer situations in which it would be more appropriate to complete with others. In the first case, he joined others in the same flock or in a free association that lasted no longer than the temporary necessity that had given birth to it. In the second case, every one worked for his own private advantage, the strong using open force and the weak using cunning.

In this manner, men might have acquired some idea of their mutual interests, but only as far as their current necessity required. They were utter strangers to foresight and did not trouble their heads about the distant future. Suppose they were hunting a deer together. Everyone knew that to succeed, each person must faithfully stand at his post. But suppose a hare ran within reach of any of them. Without doubt, that man would pursue it without scruple, and when he seized his prey, he would not reproach himself for making his companions miss theirs.

Such interactions scarcely required more refined language than that of crows and monkeys, which flock together in almost the same manner. Inarticulate exclamations, a great many gestures, and some imitative sounds must have been the universal language of mankind. By joining to these some articulate and conventional sounds, whose origin is not easy to explain, there arose rude and imperfect languages. Such languages are to be found even today among several savage nations. The almost imperceptible progress of these first improvements took numberless ages, but the slower the succession of events, the quicker I am in relating them.

These first improvements enabled man to improve at a greater rate. Man worked harder as the mind became more enlightened. Men soon ceased to fall asleep under the first tree, or take shelter in the first cavern. They found hard and sharp stone resembling spades or hatchets, and used them to dig the ground and cut down trees. With the branches, they built huts, which they plastered with clay or dirt. This was the epoch of a first revolution, which produced the establishment and distinction of families. This revolution introduced property, and along with it perhaps a thousand quarrels and battles. As the strongest were probably the first to make cabins, which they knew they were then able to defend, we may conclude that the weak found it much quicker and safer to imitate them than to attempt to dislodge them. No one could have any great temptation to seize upon the property of his neighbour, not because it did not belong to him, but because it could be of no use to him: to become the master of another’s property, a man must expose himself to a very sharp conflict with the present occupiers.

The first developments of the heart were uniting husbands and wives, parents and children under one roof. The habit of living together gave birth to the sweetest sentiments the human species is acquainted with: conjugal and paternal love. Every family became a little society, firmly united. The sexes, whose way of life had been hitherto the same, began to adopt different manners and customs. The women became more sedentary, and became used to staying at home and looking after the children, while the men rambled abroad in quest of subsistence for the whole family. The two sexes, by living at ease, began to lose their usual ferocity and sturdiness. On the one hand, individuals became less able to engage individually with wild beasts, while on the other hand, they were able to join forces to fight them.

In this new state, the simplicity and solitariness of man's life, the limitedness of his wants, and the instruments which he had invented to satisfy them, left him with a great deal of leisure. He used his leisure to create several conveniences unknown to his ancestors. This was the first yoke he inadvertently imposed upon himself, and the first source of mischief he prepared for his children. The conveniences continued to soften both body and mind, and even degenerated into real wants. The lack of them became far more intolerable than the possession of them had been agreeable. To lose them was a misfortune, to possess them no happiness.

The use of speech commences or improves in the bosom of every family, and other diverse causes render it more and more necessary. Great floods or earthquakes surrounded inhabited districts with water or precipices; portions of the continent were torn off and split into islands. It is obvious that, among men trapped by these disasters and forced to live together, a common dialect must have been created sooner than among those who freely wandered through the main land. It is very possible that people from the islands, after their first successful voyages, brought speech to the rest of us. It is probable that society and languages began and were perfected in islands, before the inhabitants of the continent knew anything of either.

Everything now seems new. Those who earlier wandered through the woods, take to a more settled way of life, flock together, coalesce into several separate bodies, and eventually form distinct nations. These nations were united in character and manners, not by any laws or regulations, but by a uniform approach to life, a sameness of needs, and the common influence of the climate. The transitory lovemaking required by nature soon evolved into another kind, which was equally agreeable and more durable. Men begin to compare different objects. They formed ideas of merit and beauty, and these soon produced preferences. They became habituated to seeing each other often, which made it painful not to see each other always. Tender and agreeable sentiments blossomed, and by the smallest opposition, morphed into the most impetuous fury: jealousy kindles with love; discord triumphs; and the gentlest of passions requires sacrifices of human blood.

As ideas and sentiments succeed each other, men continue to shake off their original wildness, and their connections become more intimate and extensive. They now begin to assemble, sing, and dance. The combination of love and leisure become the occupation of men and women. Every one began to survey the rest, and wish to be surveyed himself. Public esteem acquired a value. He who sings or dances best, the handsomest, the strongest, the most dexterous, or the most eloquent, became the most respected. This was the first step towards inequality, and towards vice. From these first preferences, vanity and contempt, and their opposites envy and shame, were born. These new changes produced results fatal to happiness and innocence.

As soon as men began to set a value upon each other and know what esteem was, they began to want esteem; it was no longer safe for any man to refuse it to another. The duties of civility and politeness took root. Every voluntary injury became an insult, and the latter was more intolerable. Every man punished the contempt he received in proportion to his esteem for himself. The effects of revenge became terrible and men learned to be cruel. This is the state of the savage nations we know. Because so many authors cannot see how different these people were from those in nature, authors have hastily concluded that man is naturally cruel and requires a regular system of police. Nothing can be more gentle than man in his primitive state, when at an equal distance from the stupidity of brutes and the pernicious good sense of civilized man. Man in nature is confined by instinct and reason to only protect himself from threats, and he is stopped by natural compassion from doing any injury to others. As wise Locke said, where there is no property, there can be no injury.

The society and the relations now established, require different qualities in men than those they derived from their primitive constitution. A sense of morality began to embed itself into human actions. The state of nature, before the enacting of laws, where each man was the judge and avenger of his injuries, did not suit infant society. It was necessary punishments should increase as opportunities to offend increased, and so the fear of punishment added strength to the too weak curb of the law. At this time, even though men were less patient and less compassionate, men maintained a balance between the indolence of the primitive state and the petulant self-love of society. This must have been the happiest and most durable age. It was the least subject to revolutions, the best for man, and nothing could have changed things except some fatal accident which should never have happened. Savages, most of whom have been found in this condition, seems to confirm that this condition is the real youth of the world, and that all improvements have been in fact towards the decrepitness of the species.

As long as men remained satisfied with their rustic cabins, clothes made of animal skins, feathers and shells as ornaments, and scooping out with sharp-edged stones little fishing boats or clumsy musical instruments, in other words, as long as they undertook tasks a single person could finish, they lived free, healthy, honest, and happy lives. But from the moment one man needed another's assistance, from the moment it benefited one man to possess provisions sufficient for two, all equality vanished: property was created and labour became necessary. Forests became fields, which needed to be watered with human sweat, and in which slavery and misery soon sprouted and grew.

Metallurgy and agriculture were the two inventions that led to this revolution. The poet blames gold and silver, but the philosopher blames iron and corn for civilizing men and ruining mankind. Both were unknown to the savages of America, who continued to be savages; other nations have continued in a state of barbarism as long as they did not practice both these inventions. One of the best reasons that Europe has been more civilized than other parts of the world is that she has abundant iron and is best qualified to produce corn.

It is difficult to tell how men learned about iron. We cannot assume that they thought of digging it out of mines and preparing it for fusion before they knew what the result would be of such a process. After all, those men did not have the courage and foresight required to undertake such painful work and predict the advantages they might derive from it. On the other hand, there is little reason to think the discovery was accidental, as mines are found in dry and barren places, where the secret of iron would be well-hidden. The only plausible origin of iron could be some volcano which, belching forth fused metallic substances fused, might have given spectators an idea.

The principles of agriculture were known a long time before it became popular, either because trees grew abundantly and supplied them with sufficient food without requiring attention, or because they did not know how to use corn, or because they had no farming instruments, or because they did not have foresight about future necessities, or because they did not want others to run away with the fruit of their labours. Once they became more industrious, they began agriculture by using sharp stones and pointed sticks to cultivate a few pulse or roots. It was a long time before they knew how to prepare corn, and had the instruments necessary to grow it in large quantities. Not to mention, in order to farm and sow lands, one must consent to lose something at present to gain a great deal hereafter. This is a precaution foreign to savage man, who can hardly foresee his wants from morning to night.

The invention of other arts must have been necessary before agriculture could flourish. As soon as men were wanted to forge iron, others were wanted to support the forgers. The more hands were employed in manufactures, the fewer hands were left to provide subsistence for all, even though the number of mouths remained constant. As forgers required payment in exchange for their iron, the rest of the men found out the importance of agriculture. Hence, agriculture and metallurgy progressed hand in hand.

The tilling of the earth was naturally followed by the distribution of it; the idea of owning property was naturally followed by the first rules of justice. As men began to look to the future and found they possessed goods capable of being lost, every man had reason to fear reprisals for any injury he might do to others. This evolution is natural, as it is impossible to conceive how property can have any source but industry. What can a man do to acquire property but add his labour to things which he has not made? It is labour alone which gives the farmer a title to the fruits of land, and his continued tilling eventually gives him a title to the land itself, his continued possession easily transforming into property. The ancients, says Grotius, by naming Ceres Legislatrix and her festival Thesmorphoria, insinuated that the distribution of lands produced a new kind of right different from that which exists in nature.

Things might have remained equal if men's talents had been equal, for instance, if the use of iron and the consumption of agriculture had always been in proportion to each other. But the strongest man performed most labour, the most dexterous selected tasks wisely, and the most ingenious worked efficiently. The farmer required more iron or the smith more corn, and even though both worked equally, one earned more by his labour while the other could scarcely survive by his. It is thus that natural inequality unfolded and arose. The differences among men became more salient, had more permanent effects, and began to influence living conditions.

Once things arrived here, it is easy to imagine the rest. I shall not describe the successive inventions, the progress of language, the use of talents, the inequality of fortunes, the use or abuse of riches, nor all the details which follow these. I shall just give a glance at mankind in this new order.

Behold then our developed faculties, our memory and imagination at work, our self-love, our awakened reason, and our mind almost at the bounds of what it is capable of. Behold all our natural qualities put in motion, the rank and condition of every man established, not only with respect to property and power, but also with respect to genius, beauty, strength, merit, or talents. As these were the only qualities which could command respect, it was necessary to have them or pretend to. To be and to appear to be became two very different things, and from this distinction sprang pomp and knavery, and all their vices. On the other hand, man, so far free and independent, was now in possession of a multitude of new wants. Man became a slave to his fellows even if he also become their master: the rich needed other men's services; the poor, their assistance. Man must have worked continuously to make others find an advantage in working for for his happiness. This rendered him sly and artful in his dealings with some, and imperious and cruel in his dealings with others. He began to exploit those he needed when he could not awe them into compliance. In short, an insatiable ambition, a rage of raising their fortunes to outdo others, inspired all men with a wicked heart to injure each other, and rendered all men with secret jealousy even more dangerous because jealousy often hides by putting on the face of benevolence. Sometimes all that existed was endeavoring on the one hand and an opposition on the other; a secret desire to thrive at the expense of others constantly prevailed. Such were the first effects of property and inequality.

Riches, before the invention of abstractions, only existed as lands and cattle, the only real goods which men can possess. But when estates increased and left no free land behind, it became impossible for one man to further himself but at the expense of some other. Some men, too weak or indolent to acquire land, became impoverished without losing anything, because they remained the same while everything around them changed; these men were obliged to receive their subsistence from the rich. And hence began to flow domination and slavery, violence and rapine. The rich had scarcely tasted the pleasure of commanding, when they started to prefer that taste to every other. They no longer thought of anything but subduing and enslaving their neighbours, using their old slaves to acquire new ones. They were like those ravenous wolves, who have tasted human flesh and now despise every other food.

Equality once broken was followed by the most shocking disorders. The usurpations of the rich, the pillagings of the poor, and the unbridled passions of all, by stifling natural compassion and the as-yet-feeble voice of justice, rendered man avaricious, wicked, and ambitious. There arose between the strongest and the first occupier a perpetual conflict, which always ended in battery and bloodshed. Society at this stage was a scene of horrible warfare. Mankind is no longer able to retreat to the forest, and has brought itself to the very brink of ruin and destruction.

  [Midas is dismayed by his wish, he is rich and miserable,
   he wishes to flee his riches, he hates his wish.]

Men must have thought about their wretched situation and overwhelming calamities. The rich, in particular, must have perceived how much they suffered by perpetual war, which they alone paid for and in which they alone risked any riches. Besides, whatever justifications they might pretend to give to their hierarchies, they saw that these were founded upon false and precarious lies, and what they had acquired by force, others could wrest out of their hands by force. Even those who owed all their riches to their own labor, could hardly justify their wealth better. It meant nothing to say, “I built this wall. I own this spot due to my labour.” Another might object, “What right do you have to expect payment for doing what we did not ask for? Don't you know that people are suffering and dying because they do not have what you have more than enough of? You should have sought the unanimous consent of mankind before appropriating more land than you needed to survive.” Destitute of justifications, and without sufficient force to defend himself, the rich man at last conceived the deepest project that ever entered the human mind: to use in his favour the very forces that attacked him, to make allies of his enemies, to inspire them with maxims, to make them adopt institutions as favourable to the rich as the law of nature was unfavourable to them.

To this end, the rich spread fear to arm all his neighbors against each other and to render their possessions burdensome and their wants intolerable. He easily invented specious arguments. "Let us unite," he said, "to secure the weak from oppression, restrain the ambitious, and guarantee to every man the possession of what he owns. Let us form rules of justice and peace, to which all must conform, but which may allow for the caprice of fortune. Let us oblige alike the powerful and the weak to the observance of duties. In short, instead of turning our forces against ourselves, let us collect them into a sovereign power which may govern us by wise laws, may protect and defend all citizens, repel common enemies, and maintain accord and harmony among us."

Only a few words were needed to convince rustics, who had too many quarrels among themselves to live without arbiters, and too much avarice and ambition to live long without masters. All offered their necks to the yoke in hopes of securing their liberty. Though they perceived the advantages of a political constitution, they did not have enough experience to see its dangers. Those among them who were best qualified to foresee abuses were precisely those who expected to benefit by them. Even the wisest thought it necessary to sacrifice one type of liberty to secure another, just like a man with dangerous wounds in any of his limbs readily parts with the limb to save the rest of his body.

Such must have been the origin of society and laws, which increased the fetters of the weak and the strength of the rich, which irretrievably destroyed natural liberty, which fixed forever the laws of property and inequality, which changed an artful usurpation into an irrevocable title, and which (for the benefit of a few ambitious individuals) subjected mankind to perpetual labour, servitude, and misery. We may easily see how the establishment of a single society rendered the rest necessary, and how, to fight united forces, it became necessary for the rest of mankind to unite. Societies soon multiplied or spread to cover the face of the earth and not leave a corner in the whole universe where a man could throw off the yoke or and withdraw his head from under the perpetually overhanging sword. The civil law thus became the common rule of citizens, and the law of nature no longer applied. Under the law of nations, commerce became possible and replaced natural compassion. Natural compassion has lost its influence and now no longer exists but in some great souls, who consider themselves as citizens of the world and follow the example of God to make the whole human race the object of their benevolence.

Political bodies, remained in a state of nature among themselves, and soon experienced the inconveniences that forced men to leave that state. The state of nature was much more fatal to countries than it had been before to men. Hence, the existence of national wars, battles, murders and reprisals, and horrible prejudices which make it a virtue to shed human blood. The worthiest men learned to consider cutting the throats of their fellows a duty. Men began to butcher each other by thousands without knowing why. More murders were committed in a battle or during the taking of a single town, than had been committed in all the years men spent in the state of nature upon the whole face of the earth. These are the first effects of the division of mankind into different societies.

I know that several writers have given other reasons for the origin of political society, for instance, the conquests of the powerful, or the union of the weak. Which theory is true does not matter for what I am saying about inequality. However, my theory seems to me the most natural for the following reasons. First, because the right of conquest is no right at all, it could not serve as a foundation for any other right. Until the conquered, with full possession of their liberty, freely chose their conqueror for their chief, whatever capitulations the conquered made were founded upon violence and de facto null and void. When the right of conquest is given primacy, there is no true society, political body, or any law but that of the strongest. Second, the words “strong” and “weak,” are ambiguous. In the interval between the establishment of the right of property and the establishment of political government, the meaning of those words is better expressed by the words “rich” and “poor.” Before the establishment of laws, men had no means of hurting their equals, but by invading the property of these equals. Third, because the poor have nothing to lose but their liberty, it would have been the height of madness for them to willingly give up their liberty without obtaining something in return. At the same time, it was much easier to harm the rich by harming their possessions, and therefore the rich needed to guard against harm. It is reasonable to suppose that political society was invented by him to whom it could be of service, rather than by him to whom it must prove detrimental.

Government in its infancy had no regular and permanent form. For want of experience, men could see no further than the present inconveniences, and never thought of providing remedies for future ones. In spite of all the labours of the wisest legislators, the political state was imperfect, because it was the result of chance and its foundations were ill laid. Time was sufficient to discover its defects and suggest remedies, but could not mend its original vices. Men were continually repairing, but they should have started from scratch and removed the old materials. Society at first consisted merely of general conventions which all the members bound themselves to. Experience showed the great weakness of such a constitution: it was easy for law breakers to escape conviction or chastisement. The laws could not help being eluded in a thousand ways. At last, it was found necessary to give private persons the dangerous trust of public authority, and to magistrates the duty of enforcing obedience. To say that chiefs were elected before confederacies were formed, and that ministers of laws existed before the laws themselves, is too ridiculous to deserve serious refutation.

It would be equally unreasonable to imagine that men unconditionally threw themselves into the arms of an absolute master or that the first means contrived by jealous and unconquered men for their common safety was to run hand over head into slavery. Why else did they give themselves superiors, if it was not to be defended by them against oppression, and protected in their lives, liberties, and properties? In the relations between man and man, the worst that can happen to one man is to see himself at the mercy of another. Would it not have been nonsensical for men to give to a chief the only rights they needed his help to preserve? What could he have offered them in return for such a privilege? And if the chief had extracted men’s rights using the pretense of defending them, would he not have been immediately removed from his position after the pretense was discovered? It is a fundamental maxim of political law that people gave themselves chiefs to defend their liberty, and not be enslaved by them. “If we have a prince,” said Pliny to Trajan, “it is in order that he may keep us from having a master.”

Political writers argue about liberty the same way philosophers argue about the state of nature: using the things they see, they judge very different things they have never seen. They attribute to men a natural inclination to slavery, because of the patience with which slaves they know carry the yoke. They do not reflect that liberty is like innocence and virtue: its value is not known by those who do not possess it, and the relish for it is lost once it is possessed. “I know the charms of your country,” said Brasidas to a satrap who was comparing the life of the Spartans with that of the Persepolites, “but you cannot know the pleasures of mine.”

An unbroken horse erects his mane, paws the ground, and rages at the bare sight of the bit, while a trained horse patiently suffers both whip and spur. Similarly, the barbarian will never tolerate the yoke which civilized man carries without murmuring. Therefore, it is not by the servile disposition of enslaved nations that we should judge the natural disposition of man for or against slavery, but by the measures taken by free people to secure themselves from oppression. I know that slaves are constantly talking about the peace and tranquillity they enjoy in their irons, but when I see free people sacrifice pleasures, peace, riches, power, and even life itself to the preserve their liberty, and I see naked savages brave hunger, fire and sword, and death itself to preserve their independency, I feel that slaves should not argue about liberty.

As to paternal authority, from which several have derived absolute government, it is sufficient to observe that nothing in the world differs more from the cruel spirit of despotism that the gentleness of fatherly authority. Fathers care more about the advantage of he who obeys than he who commands; the father is the master of his child no longer than the child needs his assistance, and after that they become equal so that the son owes his father respect but not obedience. Gratitude is a duty which we are bound to pay, but which benefactors can not ask for. Instead of saying that civil society is derived from paternal authority, we should say that paternal authority owes civil society its force. The father's inheritance ties his children to him, and he divides it among them in proportion to their continued deference to his commands. In contrast, the subjects of a despotic chief, far from expecting any gift from him, are obliged to receive as a favour what he relinquishes to them from their own property. He does them justice when he takes from them; he treats them with mercy when he allows them to live. Thus, it is hard to prove the validity of a contract binding only one side, in which one of the parties should stake everything and the other nothing.

This odious system is even today not that of wise and good monarchs, such as the kings of France. This may be seen by passages from their edicts, such as this celebrated piece published in 1667 in the name and by the orders of Louis XIV: "Let it therefore not be said that the sovereign is not subject to the laws of his realm, since, that he is, is a maxim of the law of nations which flattery has sometimes attacked, but which good princes have always defended as the tutelary divinity of their realms. How much more reasonable is it to say with the sage Plato, that the perfect happiness of a state consists in the subjects obeying their prince, the prince obeying the laws, and the laws being equitable and always directed to the good of the public?" I shall not stop to consider if it is degrading our nature and offending our creator to renounce without reserve precious liberty merely to gratify a mad or a cruel master. I shall only ask what right rulers could have to subject their dependants to the ignominy of renouncing liberty, without which life itself must appear a burden to all those who are worthy of life.

Puffendorf says that, just like we transfer our property using contracts, we may divest ourselves of our liberty. This, in my opinion, is a very poor argument. First, the property I cede to another becomes a thing quite foreign to me, the abuse of which can no way affect me. But it affects me greatly whether my liberty is abused. For example, I cannot allow myself to be ordered to commit crimes without incurring guilt. Besides, the right of property is a mere human invention and every man may dispose of it as he pleases. However, with regard to the essential gifts of nature, such as life and liberty, it is doubtful whether any man has a right to divest these. By giving up the liberty, we degrade our being, and by giving up life we annihilate it. No temporal enjoyments can indemnify us for the loss of either; it would offend both nature and reason to renounce them for any consideration. Even if we could transfer our liberty as we do our property, the difference would be very great with regard to our children. Children enjoy our property when we cease to own it, whereas liberty is a blessing all men received from nature, so parents have no right to strip children of it. To establish slavery it was necessary to do violence to nature, to alter nature to allow such a right, so that now the rule makers say that child of a slave is born a slave, that a man does not come a man into the world.

Therefore, it is incontestably true that, not only did governments not begin with arbitrary power, but that even if such arbitrary power existed, it would be illegal and could never have served as a foundation for society or inequality.

I shall not discuss the remaining questions about the fundamental pacts of every government, but limit myself to discussing the establishment of the political body as a real contract between the multitude and the chiefs elected by it. This is a contract by which both parties oblige themselves to follow laws and form a union. The multitude centers all their wills in one person, and all the articles which explain the wills become fundamental laws. These laws apply without exception to all citizens, and one of the laws regulates the choice and the power of the chiefs appointed to execute the rest. This power allows the chiefs to maintain the constitution, but not alter it. To this power are added honours that render the laws and the ministers respectable. The ministers are distinguished by certain prerogatives, which make amends for the great fatigue caused by good administration. The magistrate obliges himself to only use his power to help his constituents, to help them maintain peaceful possession of their property, and to prefer the good of the public to his own private interest.

Before experience or a thorough knowledge of the human heart had demonstrated the abuses that could be caused by such a constitution, it must have appeared perfect, as those appointed to preserve the constitution were most concerned with it. Magistracy and its rights flowed from the fundamental laws, so if these ceased to exist, the magistrates would cease to be lawful and the people would no longer obey them. As the essence of the state was not magistrates but laws, without laws citizens would immediately revert to their primitive and natural liberty.

A little reflection confirms this truth that the contract is not irrevocable. If there was no superior power guaranteeing the fidelity of the contracting parties and obliging them to fulfill their mutual duties, each of them could renounce the contract if he discovered that the other not fulfilled his duties or if his own duties ceased to be convenient. Upon this principle rests the right of abdication. Now, if the magistrate, who has all the power and all the advantages of the contract, nevertheless has a right to divest himself of his authority, how much better a right must the people have to renounce their dependence upon him? But the countless shocking revolutions which would result of so dangerous a privilege show how much human governments needed a more solid basis than mere reason. It was necessary for public tranquillity, that the will of the Almighty should intervene to give to sovereign authority a sacred and inviolable character, which deprived subjects of the dangerous right to give sovereign authority to whom they pleased. If mankind received no other advantages from religion, this advantage alone would be sufficient to make them adopt and cherish religion, since it saves more blood than it spills.

The various forms of government owe their origin to the degree of inequality between their citizens when they first formed. Where a man was eminent for power, for virtue, for riches, or for credit, he became sole magistrate, and the state assumed a monarchical form. Where many of pretty equal eminence outshone all the rest, they were jointly elected, and this produced an aristocracy. Where there were no men whose fortune or talents were disproportionately large, men retained in common the supreme administration and formed a democracy. Time demonstrated which of these forms suited mankind best. Some remained subject to the laws, others soon bowed their necks to masters. The former laboured to preserve their liberty; the latter thought only of invading their neighbours. Virtue and happiness came to the former, riches and conquest to the latter.

In these various forms of government, the offices were at first elective. When wealth did not overshadow all, the elected were selected based on merit, age, and experience. The ancients among the Hebrews, the Geronts of Sparta, the Senate of Rome, and the very etymology of our word “seigneur,” all show how much gray hairs were respected. The more often old men were chosen, the more often it became necessary to select other old men to replace them. Electioneering took place, factions arose, the parties created bad blood, civil wars blazed forth, the lives of citizens were sacrificed to the pretended happiness of the state, and eventually the nation seemed ready to relapse into primitive confusion. Ambitious men took advantage of these circumstances to set in stone the temporary power that had been granted to them. People used to dependence, accustomed to ease, and too enervated to break their fetters, consented to increase their slavery to secure their tranquillity. Thus chiefs became hereditary, began to consider magistracies a family estate, started to call their fellow-citizens their slaves and consider them property like cows or sheep, and styled themselves the peers of Gods, and Kings of Kings.

By looking closely at the progress of inequality, we discover that the first stage was the establishment of laws and the right of property, the second stage was the institution of magistrates, and the third and last stage was the transformation of legal power into arbitrary power. The first epoch authorized different states of rich and poor, the second epoch those of powerful and weak, and the third epoch those of master and slave. In that state societies rested until new revolutions dissolved or reformed the government.

To understand this progress, we must consider the forms political bodies assume, and the inconveniences these forms cause. Those vices which render social institutions necessary, are the same vices which render the abuse of such institutions unavoidable. Laws are less strong than passions, and they restrain men without changing them. Every government which guards against corruption while complying with the constitution is unnecessary; a country where no one eludes laws or exploits magistracy requires neither laws nor magistrates.

Political distinctions are necessarily related to civil distinctions. The inequality between the people and the chiefs increases so fast that it appears among citizens in a thousand shapes according to their passions, talents, and circumstances. The magistrate can not usurp any illegal power without sharing it with other citizens. Meanwhile, citizens, hurried on by a blind ambition and looking below rather than above them, come to love authority more than independence. When they submit to fetters, it is only to be better able to fetter others in turn. It is not easy to make him obey, who does not wish to command; the most refined policy would find it impossible to subdue men who desire to be independent. But inequality easily grows among base and ambitious souls, who are ready to take risks, and are almost indifferent about whether they command or obey. Thus, there must have been a time when the people were so bewitched that their rulers only needed to say to the most pitiful wretch, "Be great you and all your posterity," to make the wretch and his heirs immediately appear great in the eyes of everyone as well as in his own. The more distant and uncertain the cause of greatness, the larger the effect; the more generations a family produced, the more illustrious it was reckoned.

I could easily explain how inequalities become unavoidable the moment that people compare themselves one with another and take note of differences. These differences are of several kinds, but riches, nobility, power, and merit, are the most important ones. I could prove that the harmony or conflict between these different forces is the surest indication of the goodness of the constitution of any state. I could show that merit is the ultimate source of all the inequalities and riches are the ultimate destination because riches are immediately useful, the most easy to communicate, and can be used to purchase every other distinction. By measuring riches we can judge exactly how much a state has deviated from its primitive institution and how far away it is from extreme corruption. I could show how much the universal desire for reputation exercises our talents, excites our passions, and eventually causes disappointments and catastrophes. I could show that this fury of distinguishing ourselves never gives us a moment's respite. We owe both the best and the worst things among us, our virtues and our vices, our sciences and our errors, our philosophers and our conquerors, to this fury. In short, I could prove that we the rich and powerful enjoy their fortune and greatness only in proportion to how many others want to be them. Even if nothing else changed, the rich and powerful would cease to be happy the minute the people ceased to be miserable.

But these details have enough material to form a different book, in which I could weigh the advantages and disadvantages of different kinds of government, and all the different types of inequalities that exist. We should see the multitude oppressed by domestic tyrants in light of the precautions taken by the multitude to guard against foreign masters. We should see oppression increase without the oppressed knowing where it will stop, nor what lawful means they have left to check its progress. We should see the rights of citizens and the liberties of nations extinguished by slow degrees, while the groans, protestations, and appeals of the weak are treated as seditious murmurings. We should see policy bestow upon a mercenary army the honour of defending the common cause. We should see the disheartened husbandman desert his field to take up the sword. We should see fatal and whimsical rules created about honour. We should see the heros become villains holding their swords to the breasts of their fellow citizens. Nay, the time will come when citizens will say to their rulers:

  If you order me to plunge my sword into my brother’s chest,
  my father’s throat, or the belly of my pregnant wife,
  I will do so even though my hand is unwilling.

The vast inequality of conditions and fortunes would prejudice reason, happiness, and virtue. The chiefs will weaken men by dividing them. They will give society an air of apparent harmony while sowing the seeds of division. They will inspire the different factions with mutual distrust and hatred, and thus strengthen their own power to contain them all.

The despotism will gradually devour all that remained sound and untainted, and will at last trample upon the laws and the people to establish herself upon the ruins of the republic. The times immediately preceding this last alteration would be times of calamity and trouble, and at last everything would be swallowed up by the monster. The people will no longer have chiefs or laws, but only tyrants. All virtue and manners will disappear, for despotism tolerates no other master; the moment it speaks, probity and duty lose all their influence, and the blind obedience is the only virtue the miserable slaves have left to practise.

This is the last stage of inequality, the extreme point which closes the circle and brings us back to the beginning. Here all private men return to their primitive equality. The subjects have no law but that of their master, nor the master any law but his passions. All notions of good and justice disappear. Everything returns to the law of the strongest. This is a new state of nature; the first state of nature was pure, and the last will be corrupt. Otherwise, there is little difference between these two states of nature. The contract of government is dissolved by despotism, so that the despot is only master for as long as he is strongest. As soon as his slaves can expel him, they may do it without his having the least right to complain. The insurrection which ends in the death of a tyrant is as juridical an act as any the tyrant undertook. Force alone upheld him, force alone overturns him. Whatever may be the result of these hasty and frequent revolutions, no one man has reason to complain about another's injustice, only about his own weakness or bad fortune.

Thus, by discovering and following the forgotten tracks by which man must have arrived from the natural state at the civil state and by studying the intermediate stages, every attentive reader must unavoidably notice the immense distance which separates these two states. In this slow progression, you may find the solution to an infinite number of problems in morality and politics. You will find the reason why Diogenes could not find a man: he was looking among his contemporaries for a man of an earlier period. You will see that Cato fell with Rome and with liberty because he did not suit the age in which he lived; the world would have cheerfully obeyed him had he come into it five hundred years earlier. You will be able to understand how the soul and passions of men slowly change their nature; original man has vanished by degrees, and society now only contains artificial men and factitious passions which are the work of civil society and have no foundation in nature. Savage man and civilized man differ so much in inclinations and passions, that what is the supreme happiness of one would reduce the other to despair. The first wants nothing but repose and liberty; he desires only to live, and to be exempt from labour. The ataraxy of the most confirmed Stoic falls short of his consummate indifference for every other object. On the contrary, the citizen always in motion, perpetually sweating and toiling and racking his brains to find perform more and more work. He continues this drudge to his last minute; he even courts death to be able to live, or renounces life to acquire immortality. He sucks up to men in power whom he hates, and to rich men whom he despises. He sticks at nothing to have the honour of serving them. He is not ashamed to know his weakness and know he needs their protection. He is proud of his chains and speaks with disdain of those who have not the honour of bondage. What a spectacle the painful labours of a European minister of state must be for the eyes of a Caribbean! How many cruel deaths would this savage prefer to such a horrid life, which often is not even sweetened by the pleasure of doing good? To understand the European, his mind should know the meaning of power and reputation, should know that some men prefer to be praised by others rather than satisfied on their own. In fact, the real source of all these differences is that the savage lives within himself, whereas the citizen is constantly beside himself and knows only how to live in the opinion of others. It is merely from the judgment of others that the citizen derives the consciousness of his own existence. It is outside the scope of this work to show how this attitude creates indifference towards good and evil, and how honor, friendship, and virtue are reduced to appearances to become mere art and mummery. By always relying on others to define ourselves and never daring to question ourselves, we have nothing to show for ourselves but a deceitful and frivolous exterior, honour without virtue, reason without wisdom, and pleasure without happiness. I have proved that this is not the original condition of man; it is merely the spirit of society and the inequality it creates.

I have endeavoured to exhibit the origin and progress of inequality through the institution and abuse of political societies. I have used mere light of reason to deduce truths from the nature of man, without relying on sacred maxims which give the sovereign authority the sanction of divine right. I have shown that there is scarcely any inequality among men in a state of nature, and the inequality we now behold owes its force and its growth to the development of our faculties and the improvement of our understanding, and at last becomes permanent and lawful by the establishment of property and of laws. I have shown that moral inequality clashes with natural right: the inequality present in all civilised nations is against the law of nature because infancy commands old age, folly conducts wisdom, and a handful of men are ready to choke with superfluities, while the famished multitude want the basic necessities of life.