Socrates had begun at Athens, and the elder Cato proceeded at Rome, to

inveigh against those seductive and subtle Greeks, who corrupted the

virtue and destroyed the courage of their fellow-citizens: culture,

however, prevailed. Rome was filled with philosophers and orators,

military discipline was neglected, agriculture was held in contempt,

men formed sects, and forgot their country. To the sacred names of

liberty, disinterestedness and obedience to law, succeeded those of

Epicurus, Zeno and Arcesilaus. It was even a saying among their own

philosophers that since learned men appeared among them, honest men had

been in eclipse. Before that time the Romans were satisfied with the

practice of virtue; they were undone when they began to study it.

What would the great soul of Fabricius have felt, if it had been

his misfortune to be called back to life, when he saw the pomp and

magnificence of that Rome, which his arm had saved from ruin, and

his honourable name made more illustrious than all its conquests.

"Ye gods!" he would have said, "what has become of those thatched

roofs and rustic hearths, which were formerly the habitations of

temperance and virtue? What fatal splendour has succeeded the ancient

Roman simplicity? What is this foreign language, this effeminacy of

manners? What is the meaning of these statues, paintings and buildings?

Fools, what have you done? You, the lords of the earth, have made

yourselves the slaves of the frivolous nations you have subdued.

You are governed by rhetoricians, and it has been only to enrich

architects, painters, sculptors and stage-players that you have watered

Greece and Asia with your blood. Even the spoils of Carthage are the

prize of a flute-player. Romans! Romans! make haste to demolish those

amphitheatres, break to pieces those statues, burn those paintings;

drive from among you those slaves who keep you in subjection, and whose

fatal arts are corrupting your morals. Let other hands make themselves

illustrious by such vain talents; the only talent worthy of Rome is

that of conquering the world and making virtue its ruler. When Cyneas

took the Roman senate for an assembly of kings, he was not struck by

either useless pomp or studied elegance. He heard there none of that

futile eloquence, which is now the study and the charm of frivolous

orators. What then was the majesty that Cyneas beheld? Fellow citizens,

he saw the noblest sight that ever existed under heaven, a sight which

not all your riches or your arts can show; an assembly of two hundred

virtuous men, worthy to command in Rome, and to govern the world."

But let pass the distance of time and place, and let us see what has

happened in our own time and country; or rather let us banish odious

descriptions that might offend our delicacy, and spare ourselves the

pains of repeating the same tilings under different names. It was not

for nothing that I invoked the Manes of Fabricius; for what have I

put into his mouth, that might not have come with as much propriety

from Louis the Twelfth or Henry the Fourth? It is true that in France

Socrates would not have drunk the hemlock, but he would have drunk of

a potion infinitely more bitter, of insult, mockery and contempt a

hundred times worse than death.

Thus it is that luxury, profligacy and slavery, have been, in all ages,

the scourge of the efforts of our pride to emerge from that happy

state of ignorance, in which the wisdom of providence had placed us.

That thick veil with which it has covered all its operations seems to

be a sufficient proof that it never designed us for such fruitless

researches. But is there, indeed, one lesson it has taught us, by which

we have rightly profited, or which we have neglected with impunity? Let

men learn for once that nature would have preserved them from science,

as a mother snatches a dangerous weapon from the hands of her child.

Let them know that all the secrets she hides are so many evils from

which she protects them, and that the very difficulty they find in

acquiring knowledge is not the least of her bounty towards them. Men

are perverse; but they would have been far worse, if they had had the

misfortune to be born learned.

How humiliating are these reflections to humanity, and how mortified

by them our pride should be! What! it will be asked, is uprightness

the child of ignorance? Is virtue inconsistent with learning? What

consequences might not be drawn from such suppositions? But to

reconcile these apparent contradictions, we need only examine closely

the emptiness and vanity of those pompous titles, which are so

liberally bestowed on human knowledge, and which so blind our judgment.

Let us consider, therefore, the arts and sciences in themselves. Let us

see what must result from their advancement, and let us not hesitate

to admit the truth of all those points on which our arguments coincide

with the inductions we can make from history.

[1] Sovereigns always see with, pleasure a taste for the arts of

amusement and superfluity, which do not result in the exportation of

bullion, increase among their subjects. They very well know that,

besides nourishing that littleness of mind which is proper to slavery,

the increase of artificial wants only binds so many more chains upon

the people. Alexander, wishing to keep the Ichthyophages in a state

of dependence, compelled them to give up fishing, and subsist on the

customary food of civilised nations. The American savages, who go

naked, and live entirely on the products of the chase, have been always

impossible to subdue. What yoke, indeed, can be imposed on men who

stand in need of nothing?

[2] "I love," said Montaigne, "to converse and hold an argument; but

only with very few people, and that for my own gratification. For to do

so, by way of affording amusement for the great, or of making a parade

of one's talents, is, in my opinion, a trade very ill-becoming a man of

honour." It is the trade of all our intellectuals, save one.

[3] I dare not speak of those happy nations, who did not even know the

name of many vices, which we find it difficult to suppress; the savages

of America, whose simple and natural mode of government Montaigne

preferred, without hesitation, not only to the laws of Plato, but to

the most perfect visions of government philosophy can ever suggest He

cites many examples, striking for those who are capable of appreciating

them. But, what of all that, says he, they can't run to a pair of

breeches!

[4] What are we to think was the real opinion of the Athenians

themselves about eloquence, when they were so very careful to banish

declamation from that upright tribunal, against whose decision even

their gods made no appeal? What did the Romans think of physicians,

when they expelled medicine from the republic? And when the relics of

humanity left among the Spaniards induced them to forbid their lawyers

to set foot in America, what must they have thought of jurisprudence?

May it not be said that they thought, by this single expedient, to make

reparation for all the outrages they had committed against the unhappy

Indians?

THE SECOND PART

An ancient tradition passed out of Egypt into Greece, that some god,

who was an enemy to the repose of mankind, was the inventor of the

sciences.[1] What must the Egyptians, among whom the sciences first

arose, have thought of them? And they beheld, near at hand, the sources

from which they sprang. In fact, whether we turn to the annals of the

world, or eke out with philosophical investigations the uncertain

chronicles of history, we shall not find for human knowledge an origin

answering to the idea we are pleased to entertain of it at present.

Astronomy was born of superstition, eloquence of ambition, hatred,

falsehood and flattery; geometry of avarice; physics of an idle

curiosity; and even moral philosophy of human pride. Thus the arts and

sciences owe their birth to our vices; we should be less doubtful of

their advantages, if they had sprung from our virtues.

Their evil origin is, indeed, but too plainly reproduced in their

objects. What would become of the arts, were they not cherished by

luxury? If men were not unjust, of what use were jurisprudence?

What would become of history, if there were no tyrants, wars,

or conspiracies? In a word, who would pass his life in barren

speculations, if everybody, attentive only to the obligations of

humanity and the necessities of nature, spent his whole life in serving

his country, obliging his friends, and relieving the unhappy? Are we

then made to live and die on the brink of that well at the bottom of

which Truth lies hid? This reflection alone is, in my opinion, enough

to discourage at first setting out every man who seriously endeavours

to instruct himself by the study of philosophy.

What a variety of dangers surrounds us! What a number of wrong paths

present themselves in the investigation of the sciences! Through how

many errors, more perilous than truth itself is useful, must we not

pass to arrive at it? The disadvantages we lie under are evident; for

falsehood is capable of an infinite variety of combinations; but the

truth has only one manner of being. Besides, where is the man who

sincerely desires to find it? Or even admitting his good will, by

what characteristic marks is he sure of knowing it? Amid the infinite

diversity of opinions where is the criterion[2] by which we may

certainly judge of it? Again, what is still more difficult, should we

even be fortunate enough to discover it, who among us will know how to

make right use of it?

If our sciences are futile in the objects they propose, they are

no less dangerous in the effects they produce. Being the effect of

idleness, they generate idleness in their turn; and an irreparable

loss of time is the first prejudice which they must necessarily cause

to society. To live without doing some good is a great evil as well in

the political as in the moral world; and hence every useless citizen

should be regarded as a pernicious person. Tell me then, illustrious

philosophers, of whom we learn the ratios in which attraction acts in

vacuo; and in the revolution of the planets, the relations of spaces

traversed in equal times; by whom we are taught what curves have

conjugate points, points of inflexion, and cusps; how the soul and body

correspond, like two clocks, without actual communication; what planets

may be inhabited; and what insects reproduce in an extraordinary

manner. Answer me, I say, you from whom we receive all this sublime

information, whether we should have been less numerous, worse governed,

less formidable, less flourishing, or more perverse, supposing you had

taught us none of all these fine things.

Reconsider therefore the importance of your productions; and, since

the labours of the most enlightened of our learned men and the best of

our citizens are of so little utility, tell us what we ought to think

of that numerous herd of obscure writers and useless litterateurs, who

devour without any return the substance of the State.

Useless, do I say? Would God they were! Society would be more peaceful,

and morals less corrupt. But these vain and futile declaimers go forth

on all sides, armed with their fatal paradoxes, to sap the foundations

of our faith, and nullify virtue. They smile contemptuously at such

old names as patriotism and religion, and consecrate their talents and

philosophy to the destruction; and defamation of all that men hold

sacred. Not that they bear any real hatred to virtue or dogma; they are

the enemies of public opinion alone; to bring them to the foot of the

altar, it would be enough to banish them to a land of atheists. What

extravagancies will not the rage of singularity induce men to commit!

The waste of time is certainly a great evil; but still greater evils

attend upon literature and the arts. One is luxury, produced like

them by indolence and vanity. Luxury is seldom unattended by the arts

and sciences; and they are always attended by luxury. I know that our

philosophy, fertile in paradoxes, pretends, in contradiction to the

experience of all ages, that luxury contributes to the splendour of

States. But, without insisting on the necessity of sumptuary laws, can

it be denied that rectitude of morals is essential to the duration of

empires, and that luxury is diametrically opposed to such rectitude?

Let it be admitted that luxury is a certain indication of wealth; that

it even serves, if you will, to increase such wealth: what conclusion

is to be drawn from this paradox, so worthy of the times? And what

will become of virtue if riches are to be acquired at any cost? The

politicians of the ancient world were always talking of morals and

virtue; ours speak of nothing but commerce and money. One of them will

tell you that in such a country a man is worth just as much as he will

sell for at Algiers: another, pursuing the same mode of calculation,

finds that in some countries a man is worth nothing, and in others

still less than nothing; they value men as they do droves of oxen.

According to them, a man is worth no more to the State, than the

amount he consumes; and thus a Sybarite would be worth at least thirty

Lacedæmonians. Let these writers tell me, however, which of the two

republics, Sybaris or Sparta, was subdued by a handful of peasants, and

which became the terror of Asia.

The monarchy of Cyrus was conquered by thirty thousand men, led by a

prince poorer than the meanest of Persian Satraps: in like manner the

Scythians, the poorest of all nations, were able to resist the most

powerful monarchs of the universe. When two famous republics contended

for the empire of the world, the one rich and the other poor, the

former was subdued by the latter. The Roman empire in its turn, after

having engulfed all the riches of the universe, fell a prey to peoples

who knew not even what riches were. The Franks conquered the Gauls, and

the Saxons England, without any other treasures than their bravery and

their poverty. A band of poor mountaineers, whose whole cupidity was

confined to the possession of a few sheep-skins, having first given a

check to the arrogance of Austria, went on to crush the opulent and

formidable house of Burgundy, which at that time made the potentates

of Europe tremble. In short, all the power and wisdom of the heir of

Charles the Fifth, backed by all the treasures of the Indies, broke

before a few herring-fishers. Let our politicians condescend to lay

aside their calculations for a moment, to reflect on these examples;

let them learn for once that money, though it buys everything else,

cannot buy morals and citizens. What then is the precise point in

dispute about luxury? It is to know which is most advantageous to

empires, that their existence should be brilliant and momentary,

or virtuous and lasting? I say brilliant, but with what lustre! A

taste for ostentation never prevails in the same minds as a taste

for honesty. No, it is impossible that understandings, degraded by a

multitude of futile cares, should ever rise to what is truly great and

noble; even if they had the strength, they would want the courage.

Every artist loves applause. The praise of his contemporaries is the

most valuable part of his recompense. What then will he do to obtain

it, if he have the misfortune to be born among a people, and at a

time, when learning is in vogue, and the superficiality of youth is

in a position to lead the fashion; when men have sacrificed their

taste to those who tyrannise over their liberty, and one sex dare not

approve anything but what is proportionate to the pusillanimity of

the other;[3] when the greatest masterpieces of dramatic poetry are

condemned, and the noblest of musical productions neglected? This is

what he will do. He will lower his genius to the level of the age, and

will rather submit to compose mediocre works, that will be admired

during his life-time, than labour at sublime achievements which will

not be admired till long after he is dead. Let the famous Voltaire tell

us how many nervous and masculine beauties he has sacrificed to our

false delicacy, and how much that is great and noble, that spirit of

gallantry, which delights in what is frivolous and petty, has cost him.

It is thus that the dissolution of morals, the necessary consequence of

luxury, brings with it in its turn the corruption of taste. Further, if

by chance there be found among men of average ability, an individual

with enough strength of mind to refuse to comply with the spirit of

the age, and to debase himself by puerile productions, his lot will

be hard. He will die in indigence and oblivion. This is not so much a

prediction, as a fact already confirmed by experience! Yes, Carle and

Pierre Vanloo, the time is already come when your pencils, destined to

increase the majesty of our temples by sublime and holy images, must

fall from your hands, or else be prostituted to adorn the panels of a

coach with lascivious paintings. And you, inimitable Pigal, rival of

Phidias and Praxiteles, whose chisel the ancients would have employed

to carve them gods, whose images almost excuse their idolatry in our

eyes; even your hand must condescend to fashion the belly of an ape, or

else remain idle.

We cannot reflect on the morality of mankind without contemplating with

pleasure the picture of the simplicity which prevailed in the earliest

times. This image may be justly compared to a beautiful coast, adorned

only by the hands of nature; towards which our eyes are constantly

turned, and which we see receding with regret. While men were innocent

and virtuous and loved to have the gods for witnesses of their actions,

they dwelt together in the same huts; but when they became vicious,

they grew tired of such inconvenient onlookers, and banished them to

magnificent temples. Finally, they expelled their deities even from

these, in order to dwell there themselves; or at least the temples

of the gods were no longer more magnificent than the palaces of the

citizens. This was the height of degeneracy; nor could vice ever be

carried to greater lengths than when it was seen, supported, as it

were, at the doors of the great, on columns of marble, and graven on

Corinthian capitals.

As the conveniences of life increase, as the arts are brought to

perfection, and luxury spreads, true courage flags, the virtues

disappear; and all this is the effect of the sciences and of those

arts which are exercised in the privacy of men's dwellings. When the

Goths ravaged Greece, the libraries only escaped the flames owing to an

opinion that was set on foot among them, that it was best to leave the

enemy with a possession so calculated to divert their attention from

military exercises, and keep them engaged in indolent and sedentary

occupations.

Charles the Eighth found himself master of Tuscany and the kingdom of

Naples, almost without drawing sword; and all his court attributed

this unexpected success to the fact that the princes and nobles of

Italy applied themselves with greater earnestness to the cultivation

of their understandings than to active and martial pursuits. In fact,

says the sensible person who records these characteristics, experience

plainly tells us, that in military matters and all that resemble them

application to the sciences tends rather to make men effeminate and

cowardly than resolute and vigorous.

The Romans confessed that military virtue was extinguished among them,

in proportion as they became connoisseurs in the arts of the painter,

the engraver and the goldsmith, and began to cultivate the fine arts.

Indeed, as if this famous country was to be for ever an example to

other nations, the rise of the Medici and the revival of letters has

once more destroyed, this time perhaps for ever, the martial reputation

which Italy seemed a few centuries ago to have recovered.

The ancient republics of Greece, with that wisdom which was so

conspicuous in most of their institutions, forbade their citizens

to pursue all those inactive and sedentary occupations, which by

enervating and corrupting the body diminish also the vigour of the

mind. With what courage, in fact, can it be thought that hunger and

thirst, fatigues, dangers and death, can be faced by men whom the

smallest want overwhelms and the slightest difficulty repels? With what

resolution can soldiers support the excessive toils of war, when they

are entirely unaccustomed to them? With what spirits can they make

forced marches under officers who have not even the strength to travel

on horseback? It is no answer to cite the reputed valour of all the

modern warriors who are so scientifically trained. I hear much of their

bravery in a day's battle; but I am told nothing of how they support

excessive fatigue, how they stand the severity of the seasons and the

inclemency of the weather. A little sunshine or snow, or the want

of a few superfluities, is enough to cripple and destroy one of our

finest armies in a few days. Intrepid warriors I permit me for once to

tell you the truth, which you seldom hear. Of your bravery I am fully

satisfied. I have no doubt that you would have triumphed with Hannibal

at Cannæ, and at Trasimene: that you would have passed the Rubicon

with Cæsar, and enabled him to enslave his country; but you never would

have been able to cross the Alps with the former, or with the latter to

subdue your own ancestors, the Gauls.

A war does not always depend on the events of battle: there is in

generalship an art superior to that of gaining victories. A man may

behave with great intrepidity under fire, and yet be a very had

officer. Even in the common soldier, a little more Strength and vigour

would perhaps be more useful than so much courage, which after all is

no protection from death. And what does it matter to the State whether

its troops perish by cold and fever, or by the sword of the enemy?

If the cultivation of the sciences is prejudicial to military

qualities, it is still more so to moral qualities. Even from our

infancy an absurd system of education serves to adorn our wit and

corrupt our judgment. We see, on every side, huge institutions, where

our youth are educated at great expense, and instructed in everything

but their duty. Your children will be ignorant of their own language,

when they can talk others which are not spoken anywhere. They will be

able to compose verses which they can hardly understand; and, without

being capable of distinguishing truth from error, they will possess

the art of making them unrecognisable by specious arguments. But

magnanimity, equity, temperance, humanity and courage will be words of

which they know not the meaning. The dear name of country will never

strike on their ears; and if they ever hear speak of God,[4] it will

be less to fear, than to be frightened of Him. I would as soon, said a

wise man, that my pupil had spent his time in the tennis court as in

this manner; for there his body at least would have got exercise.

I well know that children ought to be kept employed, and that idleness

is for them the danger most to be feared. But what should they be

taught? This is undoubtedly an important question. Let them be taught

what they are to practise when they come to be men;[5] not what they

ought to forget.

Our gardens are adorned with statues and our galleries with pictures.

What would you imagine these masterpieces of art, thus exhibited to

public admiration, represent? The great men, who have defended their

country, or the still greater men who have enriched it by their

virtues? Far from it. They are the images of every perversion of heart

and mind, carefully selected from ancient mythology, and presented

to the early curiosity of our children, doubtless that they may have

before their eyes the representations of vicious actions, even before

they are able to read.

Whence arise all those abuses, unless it be from that fatal inequality

introduced among men by the difference of talents and the cheapening

of virtue? This is the most evident effect of all our studies, and the

most dangerous of all their consequences. The question is no longer

whether a man is honest, but whether he is clever. We do not ask

whether a book is useful, but whether it is well-written. Rewards are

lavished on wit and ingenuity, while virtue is left unhonoured. There

are a thousand prizes for fine discourses, and none for good actions.

I should be glad, however, to know whether the honour attaching to the

best discourse that ever wins the prize in this Academy is comparable

with the merit of having founded the prize.

A wise man does not go in chase of fortune; but he is by no means

insensible to glory, and when he sees it so ill distributed, his

virtue, which might have been animated by a little emulation, and

turned to the advantage of society, droops and dies away in obscurity

and indigence. It is for this reason that the agreeable arts must in

time everywhere be preferred to the useful; and this truth has been but

too much confirmed since the revival of the arts and sciences. We have

physicists, geometricians, chemists, astronomers, poets, musicians, and

painters in plenty; but we have no longer a citizen among us; or if

there be found a few scattered over our abandoned countryside, they are

left to perish there unnoticed and neglected. Such is the condition to

which we are reduced, and such are our feelings towards those who give

us our daily bread, and our children milk.

I confess, however, that the evil is not so great as it might

have become. The eternal providence, in placing salutary simples

beside noxious plants, and making poisonous animals contain their

own antidote, has taught the sovereigns of the earth, who are its

ministers, to imitate its wisdom. It is by following this example that

the truly great monarch, to whose glory every age will add new lustre,

drew from the very bosom of the arts and sciences, the very fountains

of a thousand lapses from rectitude, those famous societies, which,

while they are depositaries of the dangerous trust of human knowledge,

are yet the sacred guardians of morals, by the attention they pay to

their maintenance among themselves in all their purity, and by the

demands which they make on every member whom they admit.

These wise institutions, confirmed by his august successor and

imitated by all the kings of Europe, will serve at least to restrain

men of letters, who, all aspiring to the honour of being admitted

into these Academies, will keep watch over themselves, and endeavour

to make themselves worthy of such honour by useful performances and

irreproachable morals. Those Academies also, which, in proposing prizes

for literary merit, make choice of such subjects as are calculated to

arouse the love of virtue in the hearts of citizens, prove that it

prevails in themselves, and must give men the rare and real pleasure of

finding learned societies devoting themselves to the enlightenment of

mankind, not only by agreeable exercises of the intellect, but also by

useful instructions.

An objection which may be made is, in fact, only an additional proof of

my argument. So much precaution proves but too evidently the need for

it. We never seek remedies for evils that do not exist. Why, indeed,

must these bear all the marks of ordinary remedies, on account of their

inefficacy? The numerous establishments in favour of the learned are

only adapted to make men mistake the objects of the sciences, and turn

men's attention to the cultivation of them. One would be inclined to

think, from the precautions everywhere taken, that we are overstocked

with husbandmen, and are afraid of a shortage of philosophers. I

will not venture here to enter into a comparison between agriculture

and philosophy, as they would not bear it. I shall only ask What is

philosophy? What is contained in the writings of the most celebrated

philosophers? What are the lessons of these friends of wisdom. To hear

them, should we not take them for so many mountebanks, exhibiting

themselves in public, and crying out, _Here, Here, come to me, I am

the only true doctor_? One of them teaches that there is no such thing

as matter, but that everything exists only in representation. Another

declares that there is no other substance than matter, and no other

God than the world itself. A third tells you that there are no such

things as virtue and vice, and that moral good and evil are chimeras;

while a fourth informs you that men are only beasts of prey, and may

conscientiously devour one another. Why, my great philosophers, do you

not reserve these wise and profitable lessons for your friends and

children? You would soon reap the benefit of them, nor should we be

under any apprehension of our own becoming your disciples.

Such are the wonderful men, whom their contemporaries held in the

highest esteem during their lives, and to whom immortality has been

attributed since their decease. Such are the wise maxims we have

received from them, and which are transmitted, from age to age, to our

descendants. Paganism, though given over to all the extravagances of

human reason, has left nothing to compare with the shameful monuments

which have been prepared by the art of printing, during the reign of

the gospel. The impious writings of Leucippus and Diagoras perished

with their authors. The world, in their days, was ignorant of the art

of immortalising the errors and extravagancies of the human mind.

But thanks to the art of printing[6] and the use we make of it, the

pernicious reflections of Hobbes and Spinoza will last for ever.

Go, famous writings, of which the ignorance and rusticity of our

forefathers would have been incapable. Go to our descendants, along

with those still more pernicious works which reek of the corrupted

manners of the present age! Let them together convey to posterity

a faithful history of the progress and advantages of our arts and

sciences. If they are read, they will leave not a doubt about the

question we are now discussing, and unless mankind should then be still

more foolish than we, they will lift up their hands to Heaven and

exclaim in bitterness of heart: "Almighty God! thou who holdest in Thy

hand the minds of men, deliver us from the fatal arts and sciences of

our forefathers; give us back ignorance, innocence and poverty, which

alone can make us happy and are precious in Thy sight."

But if the progress of the arts and sciences has added nothing to our

real happiness; if it has corrupted our morals, and if that corruption

has vitiated our taste, what are we to think of the herd of text-book

authors, who have removed those impediments which nature purposely laid

in the way to the Temple of the Muses, in order to guard its approach

and try the powers of those who might be tempted to seek knowledge?

What are we to think of those compilers who have indiscreetly broken

open the door of the sciences, and introduced into their sanctuary a

populace unworthy to approach it, when it was greatly to be wished that

all who should be found incapable of making a considerable progress in

the career of learning should have been repulsed at the entrance, and

thereby cast upon those arts which are useful to society. A man who

will be all his life a bad versifier, or a third-rate geometrician,

might have made nevertheless an excellent clothier. Those whom nature

intended for her disciples have not needed masters. Bacon, Descartes

and Newton, those teachers of mankind, had themselves no teachers.

What guide indeed could have taken them so far as their sublime

genius directed them? Ordinary masters would only have cramped their

intelligence, by confining it within the narrow limits of their own

capacity. It was from the obstacles they met with at first, that they

learned to exert themselves, and bestirred themselves to traverse the

vast field which they covered. If it be proper to allow some men to

apply themselves to the study of the arts and sciences, it is only

those who feel themselves able to walk alone in their footsteps and to

outstrip them. It belongs only to these few to raise monuments to the

glory of the human understanding. But if we are desirous that nothing

should be above their genius, nothing should be beyond their hopes.

This is the only encouragement they require. The soul insensibly adapts

itself to the objects on which it is employed, and thus it is that

great occasions produce great men. The greatest orator in the world

was Consul of Rome, and perhaps the greatest of philosophers Lord

Chancellor of England. Can it be conceived that, if the former had

only been a professor at some University, and the latter a pensioner

of some Academy, their works would not have suffered from their

situation. Let not princes disdain to admit into their councils those

who are most capable of giving them good advice. Let them renounce the

old prejudice, which was invented by the pride of the great, that the

art of governing mankind is more difficult than that of instructing

them; as if it was easier to induce men to do good voluntarily, than

to compel them to it by force. Let the learned of the first rank find

an honourable refuge in their courts; let them there enjoy the only

recompense worthy of them, that of promoting by their influence the

happiness of the peoples they have enlightened by their wisdom. It is

by this means only that we are likely to see what virtue, science and

authority can do, when animated by the noblest emulation, and working

unanimously for the happiness of mankind.

But so long as power alone is on one side, and knowledge and

Understanding alone on the other, the learned will seldom make great

objects their study, princes will still more rarely do great actions,

and the peoples will continue to be, as they are, mean, corrupt and

miserable.

As for us, ordinary men, on whom Heaven has not been pleased to bestow

such great talents; as we are not destined to reap such glory, let

us remain in our obscurity. Let us not covet a reputation we should

never attain, and which, in the present state of things, would never

make up to us for the trouble it would have cost us, even if we were

fully qualified to obtain it. Why should we build our happiness on the

opinions of others, when we can find it in our own hearts? Let us leave

to others the task of instructing mankind in their duty, and confine

ourselves to the discharge of our own. We have no occasion for greater

knowledge than this.

Virtue! sublime science of simple minds, are such industry and

preparation needed if we are to know you? Are not your principles

graven on every heart? Need we do more, to learn your laws, than

examine ourselves, and listen to the voice of conscience, when the

passions are silent?

This is the true philosophy, with which we must learn to be content,

without envying the fame of those celebrated men, whose names are

immortal in the republic of letters. Let us, instead of envying them,

endeavour to make, between them and us, that honourable distinction

which was formerly seen to exist between two great peoples, that the

one knew how to speak, and the other how to act, aright.

[1] It is easy to see the allegory in the fable of Prometheus: and it

does not appear that the Greeks, who chained him to the Caucasus, had a

better opinion of him than the Egyptians had of their god Theutus. The

Satyr, says an ancient fable, the first time he saw a fire, was going

to kiss and embrace it; but Prometheus cried out to him to forbear, or

his beard would rue it. It burns, says he, everything that touches it.

[2] The less we know, the more we think we know. The peripatetics

doubted of nothing. Did not Descartes construct the universe with cubes

and vortices? And is there in all Europe one single physicist who does

not boldly explain the inexplicable mysteries of electricity, which

will, perhaps, be for ever the despair of real philosophers?

[3] I am far from thinking that the ascendancy which women have

obtained over men is an evil in itself. It is a present which nature

has made them for the good of mankind. If better directed, it might

be productive of as much good, as it is now of evil. We are not

sufficiently sensible of what advantage it would be to society to

give a better education to that half of our species which governs the

other. Men will always be what women choose to make them. If you wish

then that they should be noble and virtuous, let women be taught what

greatness of soul and virtue are. The reflections which this subject

arouses, and which Plato formerly made, deserve to be more fully

developed by a pen worthy of following so great a master, and defending

so great a cause.

[4] Pensées philosophiques (Diderot).

[5] Such was the education of the Spartans with regard to one of the

greatest of their-kings. It is well worthy of notice, says Montaigne,

that the excellent institutions of Lycurgus, which were in truth

miraculously perfect, paid as much attention to the bringing up of

youth as if this were their principal object, and yet, at the very seat

of the Muses, they make so little mention of learning that it seems as

if their generous-spirited youth disdained every other restraint, and

required, instead of masters of the sciences, instructors in valour,

prudence and justice alone.

Let us hear next what the same writer says of the ancient Persians.

Plato, says he, relates that the heir to the throne was thus brought

up. At his birth he was committed, not to the care of women, but to

eunuchs in the highest authority and near the person of the king, on

account of their virtue. These undertook to render his body beautiful

and healthy. At seven years of age they taught him to ride and go

hunting. At fourteen he was placed in the hands of four, the wisest,

the most just, the most temperate and the bravest persons in the

kingdom. The first instructed him in religion, the second taught him to

adhere inviolably to truth, the third to conquer his passions, and the

fourth to be afraid of nothing. All, I may add, taught him to be a good

man; but not one taught him to be learned.

Astyages, in Xenophon, desires Cyrus to give him an account of his

last lesson. It was this, answered Cyrus, one of the big boys, of the

school having a small coat, gave it to a little boy and took away from

him his coat, which was larger. Our master having appointed me arbiter

in the dispute, I ordered that matters should stand as they were, as

each boy seemed to be better suited than before. The master, however,

remonstrated with me, saying that I considered only convenience,

whereas justice ought to have been the first concern, and justice

teaches that no one should suffer forcible interference with what

belongs to him. He added that he was punished for his wrong decision,

just as boys are punished in our country schools when they forget the

first aorist of _τύπτω_. My tutor must make me a fine harangue, _in

genere demonstrative_, before he will persuade me that his school is as

good as this.

[6] If we consider the frightful disorders which printing has already

caused in Europe, and judge of the future by the progress of its evils

from day to day, it is easy to foresee that sovereigns will hereafter

take as much pains to banish this dreadful art from their dominions,

as they ever took to encourage it The Sultan Achmet, yielding to the

importunities of certain pretenders to taste, consented to have a press

erected at Constantinople; but it was hardly set to work before they

were obliged to destroy it, and throw the plant into a well.

It is related that the Caliph Omar, being asked what should be done

with the library at Alexandria, answered in these words. "If the books

in the library contain anything contrary to the Alcoran, they are evil

and ought to be burnt; if they contain only what the Alcoran teaches,

they are superfluous." This reasoning has been cited by oar men of

letters as the height of absurdity; but if Gregory the Great had been

in the place of Omar, and the Gospel in the place of the Alcoran, the

library would still have been burnt, and it would have been perhaps the

finest action of his life.

A DISCOURSE

ON A SUBJECT PROPOSED BY THE ACADEMY OF DIJON:

WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF INEQUALITY AMONG MEN, AND IS IT AUTHORISED BY

NATURAL LAW?

_Non in depravatis, sed in his qua bene secundum naturam se habent,

considerandum est quid sit naturale._

Aristotle, Politics, Bk. i, ch. 2.

[We should consider what is natural not in things which are depraved

but in those which are rightly ordered according to nature.]

DEDICATION

TO THE

REPUBLIC OF GENEVA

MOST HONOURABLE, MAGNIFICENT AND SOVEREIGN LORDS, convinced that

only a virtuous citizen can confer on his country honours which it

can accept, I have been for thirty years past working to make myself

worthy to offer you some public homage; and, this fortunate opportunity

supplementing in some degree the insufficiency of my efforts, I have

thought myself entitled to follow in embracing it the dictates of the

zeal which inspires me, rather than the right which should have been my

authorisation. Having had the happiness to be born among you, how could

I reflect on the equality which nature has ordained between men, and

the inequality which they have introduced, without reflecting on the

profound wisdom by which both are in this State happily combined and

made to coincide, in the manner that is most in conformity with natural

law, and most favourable to society, to the maintenance of public order

and to the happiness of individuals? In my researches after the best

rules common sense can lay down for the constitution of a government,

I have been so struck at finding them all in actuality in your own,

that even had I not been born within your walls I should have thought

it indispensable for me to offer this picture of human society to that

people, which of all others seems to be possessed of its greatest

advantages, and to have best guarded against its abuses.

If I had had to make choice of the place of my birth, I should have

preferred a society which had an extent proportionate to the limits

of the human faculties; that is, to the possibility of being well

governed: in which every person being equal to his occupation, no one

should be obliged to commit to others the functions with which he was

entrusted: a State, in which all the individuals being well known to

one another, neither the secret machinations of vice, nor the modesty

of virtue should be able to escape the notice and judgment of the

public; and in which the pleasant custom of seeing and knowing one

another should make the love of country rather a love of the citizens

than of its soil.

I should have wished to be born in a country in which the interest of

the Sovereign and that of the people must be single and identical; to

the end that all the movements of the machine might tend always to

the general happiness. And as this could not be the case, unless the

Sovereign and the people were one and the same person, it follows that

I should have wished to be born under a democratic government, wisely

tempered.

I should have wished to live and die free: that is, so far subject to

the laws that neither I, nor anybody else, should be able to cast off

their honourable yoke: the easy and salutary yoke which the haughtiest

necks bear with the greater docility, as they are made to bear no other.

I should have wished then that no one within the State should be able

to say he was above the law; and that no one without should be able to

dictate so that the State should be obliged to recognise his authority.

For, be the constitution of a government what it may, if there be

within its jurisdiction a single man who is not subject to the law, all

the rest are necessarily at his discretion. And if there be a national

ruler within, and a foreign ruler without, however they may divide

their authority, it is impossible that both should be duly obeyed, or

that the State should be well governed.

I should not have chosen to live in a republic of recent institution,

however excellent its laws; for fear the government, being perhaps

otherwise framed than the circumstances of the moment might require,

might disagree with the new citizens, or they with it, and the State

run the risk of overthrow and destruction almost as soon as it came

into being. For it is with liberty as it is with those solid and

succulent foods, or with those generous wines which are well adapted

to nourish and fortify robust constitutions that are used to them,

but ruin and intoxicate weak and delicate constitutions to which they

are not suited. Peoples once accustomed to masters are not in a

condition to do without them. If they attempt to shake off the yoke,

they still more estrange themselves from freedom, as, by mistaking for

it an unbridled license to which it is diametrically opposed, they

nearly always manage, by their revolutions, to hand themselves over to

seducers, who only make their chains heavier than before. The Roman

people itself, a model for all free peoples, was wholly incapable of

governing itself when it escaped from the oppression of the Tarquins.

Debased by slavery, and the ignominious tasks which had been imposed

upon it, it was at first no better than a stupid mob, which it was

necessary to control and govern with the greatest wisdom; in order

that, being accustomed by degrees to breathe the health-giving air of

liberty, minds which had been enervated or rather brutalised under

tyranny, might gradually acquire that severity of morals and spirit

of fortitude which made it at length the people of all most worthy of

respect. I should, then, have sought out for my country some peaceful

and happy Republic, of an antiquity that lost itself, as it were, in

the night of time: which had experienced only such shocks as served to

manifest and strengthen the courage and patriotism of its subjects; and

whose citizens, long accustomed to a wise independence, were not only

free, but worthy to be so.

I should have wished to choose myself a country, diverted, by a

fortunate impotence, from the brutal love of conquest, and secured, by

a still more fortunate situation, from the fear of becoming itself the

conquest of other States: a free city situated between several nations,

none of which should have any interest in attacking it, while each

had an interest in preventing it from being attacked by the others;

in short, a Republic which should have nothing to tempt the ambition

of its neighbours, but might reasonably depend on their assistance in

case of need. It follows that a republican State so happily situated

could have nothing to fear but from itself; and that, if its members

trained themselves to the use of arms, it would be rather to keep alive

that military ardour and courageous spirit which are so proper among

free-men, and tend to keep up their taste for liberty, than from the

necessity of providing for their defence.

I should have sought a country, in which the right of legislation

was vested in all the citizens; for who can judge better than they of

the conditions under which they had best dwell together in the same

society? Not that I should have approved of Plebiscita, like those

among the Romans; in which the rulers in the State, and those most

interested in its preservation, were excluded from the deliberations on

which in many cases its security depended; and in which, by the most

absurd inconsistency, the magistrates were deprived of rights which the

meanest citizens enjoyed.

On the contrary, I should have desired that, in order to prevent

self-interested and ill-conceived projects, and all such dangerous

innovations as finally ruined the Athenians, each man should not be at

liberty to propose new laws at pleasure; but that this right should

belong exclusively to the magistrates; and that even they should use it

with so much caution, the people, on its side, be so reserved in giving

its consent to such laws, and the promulgation of them be attended

with so much solemnity, that before the constitution could be upset by

them, there might be time enough for all to be convinced, that it is

above all the great antiquity of the laws which makes them sacred and

venerable, that men soon learn to despise laws which they see daily

altered, and that States, by accustoming themselves to neglect their

ancient customs under the pretext of improvement, often introduce

greater evils than those they endeavour to remove.

I should have particularly avoided, as necessarily ill-governed, a

Republic in which the people, imagining themselves in a position

to do without magistrates, or at least to leave them with only a

precarious authority, should imprudently have kept for themselves the

administration of civil affairs and the execution of their own laws.

Such must have been the rude constitution of primitive governments,

directly emerging from a state of nature; and this was another of the

vices that contributed to the downfall of the Republic of Athens.

But I should have chosen a community in which the individuals,

content with sanctioning their laws, and deciding the most important

public affairs in general assembly and on the motion of the rulers,

had established honoured tribunals, carefully distinguished the

several departments, and elected year by year some of the most

capable and upright of their fellow-citizens to administer justice

and govern the State; a community, in short, in which the virtue of

the magistrates thus bearing witness to the wisdom of the people,

each class reciprocally did the other honour. If in such a case any

fatal misunderstandings arose to disturb the public peace, even these

intervals of blindness and error would bear the marks of moderation,

mutual esteem, and a common respect for the laws; which are sure signs

and pledges of a reconciliation as lasting as sincere. Such are the

advantages, most honourable, magnificent and sovereign lords, which I

should have sought in the country in which I should have chosen to be

born. And if providence had added to all these a delightful situation,

a temperate climate, a fertile soil, and the most beautiful countryside

under Heaven, I should have desired only, to complete my felicity, the

peaceful enjoyment of all these blessings, in the bosom of this happy

country; to live at peace in the sweet society of my fellow-citizens,

and practising towards them, from their own example, the duties of

friendship, humanity, and every other virtue, to leave behind me the

honourable memory of a good man, and an upright and virtuous patriot.

But, if less fortunate or too late grown wise, I had seen myself

reduced to end an infirm and languishing life in other climates, vainly

regretting that peaceful repose which I had forfeited in the imprudence

of youth, I should at least have entertained the same feelings in my

heart, though denied the opportunity of making use of them in my native

country. Filled with a tender and disinterested love for my distant

fellow-citizens, I should have addressed them from my heart, much in

the following terms.

"My dear fellow-citizens, or rather my brothers, since the ties of

blood, as well as the laws, unite almost all of us, it gives me

pleasure that I cannot think of you, without thinking, at the same

time, of all the blessings you enjoy, and of which none of you,

perhaps, more deeply feels the value than I who have lost them. The

more I reflect on your civil and political condition, the less can I

conceive that the nature of human affairs could admit of a better.

In all other governments, when there is a question of ensuring the

greatest good of the State, nothing gets beyond projects and ideas, or

at best bare possibilities. But as for you, your happiness is complete,

and you have nothing to do but enjoy it; you require nothing more to be

made perfectly happy, than to know how to be satisfied with being so.

Your sovereignty, acquired or recovered by the sword, and maintained

for two centuries past by your valour and wisdom, is at length fully

and universally acknowledged. Your boundaries are fixed, your rights

confirmed and your repose secured by honourable treaties. Your

constitution is excellent, being not only dictated by the profoundest

wisdom, but guaranteed by great and friendly powers. Your State enjoys

perfect tranquillity; you have neither wars nor conquerors to fear; you

have no other master than the wise laws you have yourselves made; and

these are administered by upright magistrates of your own choosing. You

are neither so wealthy as to be enervated by effeminacy, and thence

to lose, in the pursuit of frivolous pleasures, the taste for real

happiness and solid virtue; nor poor enough to require more assistance

from abroad than your own industry is sufficient to procure you. In the

meantime the precious privilege of liberty, which in great nations is

maintained only by submission to the most exorbitant impositions, costs

you hardly anything for its preservation.

May a Republic, so wisely and happily constituted, last for ever, for

an example to other nations, and for the felicity of its own citizens!

This is the only prayer you have left to make, the only precaution

that remains to be taken. It depends, for the future, on yourselves

alone (not to make you happy, for your ancestors have saved you that

trouble), but to render that happiness lasting, by your wisdom in

its enjoyment. It is on your constant union, your obedience to the

laws, and your respect for their ministers, that your preservation

depends. If there remains among you the smallest trace of bitterness

or distrust, hasten to destroy it, as an accursed leaven which sooner

or later must bring misfortune and ruin on the State. I conjure you

all to look into your hearts, and to hearken to the secret voice

of conscience. Is there any among you who can find, throughout the

universe, a more upright, more enlightened and more honourable body

than your magistracy? Do not all its members set you an example of

moderation, of simplicity of manners, of respect for the laws, and of

the most sincere harmony? Place, therefore, without reserve, in such

wise superiors, that salutary confidence which reason ever owes to

virtue. Consider that they are your own choice, that they justify that

choice, and that the honours due to those whom you have dignified are

necessarily yours by reflexion. Not one of you is so ignorant as not to

know that, when the laws lose their force and those who defend them

their authority, security and liberty are universally impossible. Why,

therefore, should you hesitate to do that cheerfully and with just

confidence which you would all along have been bound to do by your true

interest, your duty and reason itself?

Let not a culpable and pernicious indifference to the maintenance

of the constitution ever induce you to neglect, in case of need,

the prudent advice of the most enlightened and zealous of your

fellow-citizens; but let equity, moderation and firmness of resolution

continue to regulate all your proceedings, and to exhibit you to the

whole universe as the example of a valiant and modest people, jealous

equally of their honour and of their liberty. Beware particularly, as

the last piece of advice I shall give you, of sinister constructions

and venomous rumours, the secret motives of which are often more

dangerous than the actions at which they are levelled. A whole house

will be awake and take the first alarm given by a good and trusty

watch-dog, who barks only at the approach of thieves; but we hate the

importunity of those noisy curs, which are perpetually disturbing the

public repose, and whose continual ill-timed warnings prevent our

attending to them, when they may perhaps be necessary."

And you, most honourable and magnificent lords, the worthy and revered

magistrates of a free people, permit me to offer you in particular

my duty and homage. If there is in the world a station capable of

conferring honour on those who fill it, it is undoubtedly that

which virtue and talents combine to bestow, that of which you have

made yourselves worthy, and to which you have been promoted by your

fellow-citizens. Their worth adds a new lustre to your own; while, as

you have been chosen, by men capable of governing others, to govern

themselves, I cannot but hold you as much superior to all other

magistrates, as a free people, and particularly that over which you

have the honour to preside, is by its wisdom and its reason superior to

the populace of other States.

Be it permitted me to cite an example of which there ought to have

existed better records, and one which will be ever near to my heart.

I cannot recall to mind, without the sweetest emotions, the memory of

that virtuous citizen, to whom I owe my being, and by whom I was often

instructed, in my infancy, in the respect which is due to you. I see

him still, living by the work of his hands, and feeding his soul on the

sublimest truths. I see the works of Tacitus, Plutarch and Grotius,

lying before him in the midst of the tools of his trade. At his side

stands his dear son, receiving, alas with too little profit, the tender

instructions of the best of fathers. But, if the follies of youth made

me for a while forget his wise lessons, I have at length the happiness

to be conscious that, whatever propensity one may have to vice, it is

not easy for an education, with which love has mingled, to be entirely

thrown away.

Such, my most honourable and magnificent lords, are the citizens, and

even the common inhabitants of the State which you govern; such are

those intelligent and sensible men, of whom, under the name of workmen

and the people, it is usual, in other nations, to have a low and false

opinion. My father, I own with pleasure, was in no way distinguished

among his fellow-citizens. He was only such as they all are; and yet,

such as he was, there is no country, in which his acquaintance would

not have been coveted, and cultivated even with advantage by men of the

highest character. It would not become me, nor is it, thank Heaven, at

all necessary for me to remind you of the regard which such men have a

right to expect of their magistrates, to whom they are equal both by

education and by the rights of nature and birth, and inferior only, by

their own will, by that preference which they owe to your merit, and,

for giving you, can claim some sort of acknowledgment on your side. It

is with a lively satisfaction I understand that the greatest candour

and condescension attend, in all your behaviour towards them, on that

gravity which becomes the ministers of the law; and that you so well

repay them, by your esteem and attention, the respect and obedience

which they owe to you. This conduct is not only just but prudent; as it

happily tends to obliterate the memory of many unhappy events, which

ought to be buried in eternal oblivion. It is also so much the more

judicious, as it tends to make this generous and equitable people find

a pleasure in their duty; to make them naturally love to do you honour,

and to cause those who are the most zealous in the maintenance of their

own rights to be at the same time the most disposed to respect yours.

It ought not to be thought surprising that the rulers of a civil

society should have the welfare and glory of their communities at

heart: but it is uncommonly fortunate for the peace of men, when those

persons who look upon themselves as the magistrates, or rather the

masters of a more holy and sublime country, show some love for the

earthly country which maintains them. I am happy in having it in my

power to make so singular an exception in our favour, and to be able to

rank, among its best citizens, those zealous depositaries of the sacred

articles of faith established by the laws, those venerable shepherds of

souls whose powerful and captivating eloquence are so much the better

calculated to bear to men's hearts the maxims of the gospel, as they

are themselves the first to put them into practice. All the world knows

of the great success with which the art of the pulpit is cultivated at

Geneva; but men are so used to hearing divines preach one thing and

practise another, that few have a chance of knowing how far the spirit

of Christianity, holiness of manners, severity towards themselves and

indulgence towards their neighbours, prevail throughout the whole body

of our ministers. It is, perhaps, given to the city of Geneva alone,

to produce the edifying example of so perfect a union between its

clergy and men of letters. It is in great measure on their wisdom,

their known moderation, and their zeal for the prosperity of the State

that I build my hopes of its perpetual tranquillity. At the same time,

I notice, with a pleasure mingled with surprise and veneration, how

much they detest the frightful maxims of those accursed and barbarous

men, of whom history furnishes us with more than one example; who, in

order to support the pretended rights of God, that is to say their own

interests, have been so much the less greedy of human blood, as they

were more hopeful their own in particular would be always respected.

I must not forget that precious half of the Republic, which makes the

happiness of the other; and whose sweetness and prudence preserve its

tranquillity and virtue. Amiable and virtuous daughters of Geneva,

it will be always the lot of your sex to govern ours. Happy are we,

so long as your chaste influence, solely exercised within the limits

of conjugal union, is exerted only for the glory of the State and

the happiness of the public. It was thus the female sex commanded at

Sparta; and thus you deserve to command at Geneva. What man can be such

a barbarian as to resist the voice of honour and reason, coming from

the lips of an affectionate wife? Who would not despise; the vanities

of luxury, on beholding the simple and modest attire which, from the

lustre it derives from you, seems the most favourable to beauty? It

is your task to perpetuate, by your insinuating influence and your

innocent and amiable rule, a respect for the laws of the State, and

harmony among the citizens. It is yours to reunite divided families by

happy marriages; and, above all things, to correct, by the persuasive

sweetness of your lessons and the modest graces of your conversation,

those extravagancies which our young people pick up in other countries,

whence, instead of many useful things by which they might profit, they

bring home hardly anything, besides a puerile air and a ridiculous

manner, acquired among loose women, but an admiration for I know not

what so-called grandeur, and paltry recompenses for being slaves, which

can never come near the real greatness of liberty. Continue, therefore,

always to be what you are, the chaste guardians of our morals, and the

sweet security for our peace, exerting on every occasion the privileges

of the heart and of nature, in the interests of duty and virtue.

I flatter myself that I shall never be proved to have been mistaken, in

building on such a foundation my hopes of the general happiness of the

citizens and the glory of the Republic. It must be confessed, however,

that with all these advantages, it will not shine with that lustre, by

which the eyes of most men are dazzled; a puerile and fatal taste for

which is the most mortal enemy of happiness and liberty.

Let our dissolute youth seek elsewhere light pleasures and long

repentances. Let our pretenders to taste admire elsewhere the

grandeur of palaces, the beauty of equipages, sumptuous furniture,

the pomp of public entertainments, and all the refinements of luxury

and effeminacy. Geneva boasts nothing but men; such a sight has

nevertheless a value of its own, and those who have a taste for it are

well worth the admirers of all the rest.

Deign, most honourable, magnificent and sovereign lords, to receive,

and with equal goodness, this respectful testimony of the interest I

take in your common prosperity. And, if I have been so unhappy as to

be guilty of any indiscreet transport in this glowing effusion of my

heart, I beseech you to pardon me, and to attribute it to the tender

affection of a true patriot, and to the ardent and legitimate zeal of

a man, who can imagine for himself no greater felicity than to see you

happy.

Most honourable, magnificent and sovereign lords, I am, with the most

profound respect,

Your most humble and obedient servant and fellow-citizen.

J. J. ROUSSEAU.

_Chambéry,_

_June 12, 1754._

PREFACE

Of all human sciences the most useful and most imperfect appears

to me to be that of mankind: and I will venture to say, the single

inscription on the Temple of Delphi contained a precept more difficult

and more important than is to be found in all the huge volumes that

moralists have ever written. I consider the subject of the following

discourse as one of the most interesting questions philosophy

can propose, and unhappily for us, one of, the most thorny that

philosophers can have to solve. For how shall we know the source of

inequality between men, if we do not begin by knowing mankind? And

how shall man hope to see himself as nature made him, across all the

changes which the succession of place and time must have produced in

his original constitution? How can he distinguish what is fundamental

in his nature from the changes and additions which his circumstances

and the advances he has made have introduced to modify his primitive

condition? Like the statue of Glaucus, which was so disfigured by time,

seas and tempests, that it looked more like a wild beast than a god,

the human soul, altered in society by a thousand causes perpetually

recurring, by the acquisition of a multitude of truths and errors,

by the changes happening to the constitution of the body, and by

the continual jarring of the passions, has, so to speak, changed in

appearance, so as to be hardly recognisable. Instead of a being,

acting constantly from fixed and invariable principles, instead of

that celestial and majestic simplicity, impressed on it by its divine

Author, we find in it only the frightful contrast of passion mistaking

itself for reason, and of understanding grown delirious.

It is still more cruel that, as every advance made by the human species

removes it still farther from its primitive state, the more discoveries

we make, the more we deprive ourselves of the means of making the most

important of all. Thus it is, in one sense, by our very study of man,

that the knowledge of him is put out of our power.

It is easy to perceive that it is in these successive changes in

the constitution of man that we must look for the origin of those

differences which now distinguish men, who, it is allowed, are as equal

among themselves as were the animals of every kind, before physical

causes had introduced those varieties which are now observable among

some of them.

It is, in fact, not to be conceived that these primary changes, however

they may have arisen, could have altered, all at once and in the same

manner, every individual of the species. It is natural to think that,

while the condition of some of them grew better or worse, and they

were acquiring various good or bad qualities not inherent in their

nature, there were others who continued a longer time in their original

condition. Such was doubtless the first source of the inequality of

mankind, which it is much easier to point out thus in general terms,

than to assign with precision to its actual causes.

Let not my readers therefore imagine that I flatter myself with having

seen what it appears to me so difficult to discover. I have here

entered upon certain arguments, and risked some conjectures, less in

the hope of solving the difficulty, than with a view to throwing some

light upon it, and reducing the question to its proper form. Others may

easily proceed farther on the same road, and yet no one find it very

easy to get to the end. For it is by no means a light undertaking to

distinguish properly between what is original and what is artificial

in the actual nature of man, or to form a true idea of a state which

no longer exists, perhaps never did exist, and probably never will

exist; and of which, it is, nevertheless, necessary to have true

ideas, in order to form a proper judgment of our present state. It

requires, indeed, more philosophy than can be imagined to enable any

one to determine exactly what precautions he ought to take, in order

to make solid observations on this subject; and it appears to me that

a good solution of the following problem would be not unworthy of the

Aristotles and Plinys of the present age. _What experiments would have

to be made, to discover the natural man? And how are those experiments

to be made in a state of society_?

So far am I from undertaking to solve this problem, that I think I have

sufficiently, considered the subject, to venture to declare beforehand

that our greatest philosophers would not be too good to direct such

experiments, and our most powerful sovereigns to make them. Such a

combination we have very little reason to expect, especially attended

with the perseverance, or rather succession of intelligence and

good-will necessary on both sides to success.

These investigations, which are so difficult to make, and have been

hitherto so little thought of, are, nevertheless, the only means that

remain of obviating a multitude of difficulties which deprive us of

the knowledge of the real foundations of human society. It is this

ignorance of the nature of man, which casts so much uncertainty and

obscurity on the true definition of natural right: for, the idea of

right, says Burlamaqui, and more particularly that of natural right,

are ideas manifestly relative to the nature of man. It is then from

this very nature itself, he goes on, from the constitution and state of

man, that we must deduce the first principles of this science.

We cannot see without surprise and disgust how little agreement there

is between the different authors who have treated this great subject.

Among the more important writers there are scarcely two of the same

mind about it. Not to speak of the ancient philosophers, who seem

to have done their best purposely to contradict one another on the

most fundamental principles, the Roman jurists subjected man and the

other animals indiscriminately to the same natural law, because they

considered, under that name, rather the law which nature imposes on

herself than that which she prescribes to others; or rather because

of the particular acceptation of the term law among those jurists;

who seem on this occasion to have understood nothing more by it than

the general relations established by nature between all animated

beings, for their common preservation. The moderns, understanding,

by the term law, merely a rule prescribed to a moral being, that is

to say intelligent, free and considered in his relations to other

beings, consequently confine the jurisdiction of natural law to man,

an the only animal endowed with reason. But, defining this law, each

after his own fashion, they have established it on such metaphysical

principles, that there are very few persons among us capable of

comprehending them, much less of discovering them for themselves. So

that the definitions of these learned men, all differing in everything

else, agree only in this, that it is impossible to comprehend the law

of nature, and consequently to obey it, without being a very subtle

casuist and a profound metaphysician. All which is as much as to say

that mankind must have employed, in the establishment of society, a

capacity which is acquired only with great difficulty, and by very few

persons, even in a state of society.

Knowing so little of nature, and agreeing so ill about the meaning

of the word _law_, it would be difficult for us to fix on a good

definition of natural law. Thus all the definitions we meet with in

books, setting: aside their defect in point of uniformity, have yet

another fault, in that they are derived from many kinds of knowledge,

which men do not possess naturally, and from advantages of which they

can have no idea until they have already departed from that state.

Modern writers begin by inquiring what rules it would be expedient

for men to agree on for their common interest, and then give the name

of natural law to a collection of these rules, without any other

proof than the good that would result from their being universally

practised. This is undoubtedly a simple way of making definitions, and

of explaining the nature of things by almost arbitrary conveniences.

But as long as we are ignorant of the natural man, it is in vain for us

to attempt to determine either the law originally prescribed to him, or

that which is best adapted to his constitution. All we can know with

any certainty respecting this law is that, if it is to be a law, not

only the wills of those it obliges must be sensible of their submission

to it; but also, to be natural, it must come directly from the voice of

nature.

Throwing aside, therefore, all those scientific books, which teach us

only to see men such as they have made themselves, and contemplating

the first and most simple operations of the human soul, I think I can

perceive in it two principles prior to reason, one of them deeply

interesting us in our own welfare and preservation, and the other

exciting a natural repugnance at seeing any other sensible being, and

particularly any of our own species, suffer pain or death. It is from

the agreement and combination which the understanding is in a position

to establish between these two principles, without its being necessary

to introduce that of sociability, that all the rules of natural right

appear to me to be derived--rules which our reason is afterwards

obliged to establish on other foundations, when by its successive

developments it has been led to suppress nature itself.

In proceeding thus, we shall not be obliged to make man a philosopher

before he is a man. His duties toward others are not dictated to him

only by the later lessons of wisdom and, so long as he does not resist

the internal impulse of compassion, he will never hurt any other man,

nor even any sentient being; except on those lawful occasions on which

his own preservation is concerned and he is obliged to give himself

the preference. By this method also we put an end to the time-honoured

disputes concerning the participation of animals in natural law: for it

is clear that, being destitute of intelligence and liberty, they cannot

recognise that law; as they partake, however, in some measure of our

nature, in consequence of the sensibility with which they are endowed,

they ought to partake of natural rights so that mankind is subjected

to a kind of obligation even toward the brutes. It appears, in fact,

that if I am bound to do no injury to my fellow-creatures, this is less

because they are rational than because they are sentient beings: and

this quality, being common both to men and beasts, ought to entitle the

latter at least to the privilege of not being wantonly ill-treated by

the former.

The very study of the original man, of his real wants, and the

fundamental principles of his duty, is besides the only proper method

we can adopt to obviate all the difficulties which the origin of moral

inequality presents, on the true foundations of the body politic, on

the reciprocal rights of its members, and on many other similar topics

equally important and obscure.

If we look at human society with a calm and disinterested eye, it

seems, at first, to show us only the violence of the powerful and

the oppression of the weak. The mind is shocked at the cruelty of

the one, or is induced to lament the blindness of the other; and as

nothing is less permanent in life than those external relations, which

are more frequently produced by accident than wisdom, and which are

called weakness or power, riches or poverty, all human institutions

seem at first glance to be founded merely on banks of shifting sand. It

is only by taking a closer look, and removing the dust and sand that

surround the edifice, that we perceive the immovable basis on which it

is raised, and learn to respect its foundations. Now, without a serious

study of man, his natural faculties and their successive development,

we shall never be able to make these necessary distinctions, or to

separate, in the actual constitution of things, that which is the

effect of the divine will, from the innovations attempted by human

art. The political and moral investigations, therefore, to which the

important question before us leads, are in every respect useful; while

the hypothetical history of governments affords a lesson equally

instructive to mankind.

In considering what we should have become, had we been left to

ourselves, we should learn to bless Him, whose gracious hand,

correcting our institutions, and giving them an immovable basis, has

prevented those disorders which would otherwise have arisen from them,

and caused our happiness to come from those very sources which seemed

likely to involve us in misery.

_Quem te deus esse_

_Jussit, et humanâ quâ parte locatus es in re,_

_Disce._

Persius, Satire iii, 71.

A DISSERTATION

ON THE ORIGIN AND FOUNDATION OF THE INEQUALITY OF MANKIND

It is of man that I have to speak; and the question I am investigating

shows me that it is to men that I must address myself: for questions

of this sort are not asked by those who are afraid to honour truth. I

shall then confidently uphold the cause of humanity before the wise

men who invite me to do so, and shall not be dissatisfied if I acquit

myself in a manner worthy of my subject and of my judges.

I conceive that there are two kinds of inequality among the human

species; one, which I call natural or physical, because it is

established by nature, and consists in a difference of age, health,

bodily strength, and the qualities of the mind or of the soul: and

another, which may be called moral or political inequality, because

it depends on a kind of convention, and is established, or at least

authorised by the consent of men. This latter consists of the different

privileges, which some men enjoy to the prejudice of others; such as

that of being more rich, more honoured, more powerful or even in a

position to exact obedience.

It is useless to ask what is the source of natural inequality, because

that question is answered by the simple definition of the word. Again,

it is still more useless to inquire whether there is any essential

connection between the two inequalities; for this would be only asking,

in other words, whether those who command are necessarily better than

those who obey, and if strength of body or of mind, wisdom or virtue

are always found in particular individuals, in proportion to their

power or wealth: a question fit perhaps to be discussed by slaves in

the hearing of their masters, but highly unbecoming to reasonable and

free men in search of the truth.

The subject of the present discourse, therefore, is more precisely

this. To mark, in the progress of things, the moment at which right

took the place of violence and nature became subject to law, and to

explain by what sequence of miracles the strong came to submit to serve

the weak, and the people to purchase imaginary repose at the expense of

real felicity.

The philosophers, who have inquired into the foundations of society,

have all felt the necessity of going back to a state of nature; but not

one of them has got there. Some of them have not hesitated to ascribe

to man, in such a state, the idea of just and unjust, without troubling

themselves to show that he must be possessed of such an idea, or that

it could be of any use to him. Others have spoken of the natural right

of every man to keep what belongs to him, without explaining what

they meant by _belongs_. Others again, beginning by giving the strong

authority over the weak, proceeded directly to the birth of government,

without regard to the time that must have elapsed before the meaning

of the words authority and government could have existed among men.

Every one of them, in short, constantly dwelling on wants, avidity,

oppression, desires and pride, has transferred to the state of nature

ideas which were acquired in society; so that, in speaking of the

savage, they described the social man. It has not even entered into

the heads of most of our writers to doubt whether the state of nature

ever existed; but it is clear from the Holy Scriptures that the first

man, having received his understanding and commandments immediately

from God, was not himself in such a state; and that, if we give such

credit to the writings of Moses as every Christian philosopher ought

to give, we must deny that, even before the deluge, men were ever in

the pure state of nature; unless, indeed, they fell back into it from

some very extraordinary circumstance; a paradox which it would be very

embarrassing to defend, and quite impossible to prove.

Let us begin then by laying facts aside, as they do not affect the

question. The investigations we may enter into, in treating this

subject, must not be considered as historical truths, but only as

mere conditional and hypothetical reasonings, rather calculated to

explain the nature of things, than to ascertain their actual origin;

just like the hypotheses which our physicists daily form respecting

the formation of the world. Religion commands us to believe that, God

Himself having taken men out of a state of nature immediately after

the creation, they are unequal only because it is His will they should

be so: but it does not forbid us to form conjectures based solely on

the nature of man, and the beings around him, concerning what might

have become of the human race, if it had been left to itself. This

then is the question asked me, and that which I propose to discuss in

the following discourse. As my subject interests mankind in general,

I shall endeavour to make use of a style adapted to all nations, or

rather, forgetting time and place, to attend only to men to whom I am

speaking. I shall suppose myself in the Lyceum of Athens, repeating the

lessons of my masters, with Plato and Xenocrates for judges, and the

whole human race for audience.

O man, of whatever country you are, and whatever your opinions may be,

behold your history, such as I have thought to read it, not in books

written by your fellow-creatures, who are liars, but in nature, which

never lies. All that comes from her will be true; nor will you meet

with anything false, unless I have involuntarily put in something of my

own. The times of which I am going to speak are very remote: how much

are you changed from what you once were! It is so to speak, the life of

your species which I am going to write, after the qualities which you

have received, which your education and habits may have depraved, but

cannot have entirely destroyed. There is, I feel, an age at which the

individual man would wish to stop; you are about to inquire about the

age at which you would have liked your whole species to stand still.

Discontented with your present state, for reasons which threaten your

unfortunate descendants with still greater discontent, you will perhaps

wish it were in your power to go back; and this feeling should be a

panegyric on your first ancestors, a criticism of your contemporaries,

and a terror to the unfortunates who will come after you.

THE FIRST PART

Important as it may be, in order to judge rightly of the natural state

of man, to consider him from his origin, and to examine him, as it

were, in the embryo of his species; I shall not follow his organisation

through its successive developments, nor shall I stay to inquire what

his animal system must have been at the beginning, in order to become

at length what it actually is. I shall not ask whether his long nails

were at first, as Aristotle supposes, only crooked talons; whether

his whole body, like that of a bear, was not covered with hair; or

whether the fact that he walked upon all fours, with his looks directed

toward the earth, confined to a horizon of a few paces, did not at

once point out the nature and limits of his ideas. On this subject. I

could form none but vague and almost imaginary conjectures. Comparative

anatomy has as yet made too little progress, and the observations of

naturalists are too uncertain, to afford an adequate basis for any

solid reasoning. So that, without having recourse to the supernatural

information given us on this head, or paying any regard to the changes

which must have taken place in the internal, as well as the external,

conformation of man, as he applied his limbs to new uses, and fed

himself on new kinds of food, I shall suppose his conformation to have

been at all times what it appears to us at this day; that he always

walked on two legs, made use of his hands as we do, directed his looks

over all nature, and measured with his eyes the vast expanse of Heaven.

If we strip this being, thus constituted, of all the supernatural gifts

he may have received, and all the artificial faculties he can have

acquired only by a long process; if we consider him, in a word, just as

he must have come from the hands of nature, we behold in him an animal

weaker than some, and less agile than others; but, taking him all

round, the most advantageously organised of any. I see him satisfying

his hunger at the first oak, and slaking his thirst at the first brook;

finding his bed at the foot of the tree which afforded him a repast;

and, with that, all his wants supplied.

While the earth was left to its natural fertility and covered with

immense forests, whose trees were never mutilated by the axe, it would

present on every side both sustenance and shelter for every species of

animal. Men dispersed up and down among the rest, would observe and

imitate their industry, and thus attain even to the instinct of the

beasts, with the advantage that, whereas every species of brutes was

confined to one particular instinct, man, who perhaps has not any one

peculiar to himself, would appropriate them all, and live upon most of

those different foods, which other animals shared among themselves; and

thus would find his subsistence much more easily than any of the rest.

Accustomed from their infancy to the inclemencies of the weather and

the rigour of the seasons, inured to fatigue, and forced, naked and

unarmed, to defend themselves and their prey from other ferocious

animals, or to escape them by flight, men would acquire a robust and

almost unalterable constitution. The children, bringing with them into

the world the excellent constitution of their parents, and fortifying

it by the very exercises which first produced it, would thus acquire

all the vigour of which the human frame is capable. Nature in this case

treats them exactly as Sparta treated the children of her citizens:

those who come well formed into the world she renders strong and

robust, and all the rest she destroys; differing in this respect from

our modern communities, in which the State, by making children a burden

to their parents, kills them indiscriminately before they are born.

The body of a savage man being the only instrument he understands, he

uses it for various purposes, of which ours, for want of practice, are

incapable: for our industry deprives us of that force and agility,

which necessity obliges him to acquire. If he had had an axe, would he

have been able with his naked arm to break so large a branch from a

tree? If he had had a sling, would he have been able to throw a stone

with so great velocity? If he had had a ladder, would he have been so

nimble in climbing a tree? If he had had a horse, would he have been

himself so swift of foot? Give civilised man time to gather all his

machines about him, and he will no doubt easily beat the savage; but if

you would see a still more unequal contest, set them together naked

and unarmed, and you will soon see the advantage of having all our

forces constantly at our disposal, of being always prepared for every

event, and of carrying one's self, as it were, perpetually whole and

entire about one.

Hobbes contends that man is naturally intrepid, and is intent only

upon attacking and fighting. Another illustrious philosopher holds

the opposite, and Cumberland and Puffendorf also affirm that nothing

is more timid and fearful than man in the state of nature; that he

is always in a tremble, and ready to fly at the least noise or the

slightest movement. This may be true of things he does not know; and I

do not doubt his being terrified by every novelty that presents itself,

when he neither knows the physical good or evil he may expect from it,

nor can make a comparison between his own strength and the dangers he

is about to encounter. Such circumstances, however, rarely occur in a

state of nature, in which all things proceed in a uniform manner, and

the face of the earth is not subject to those sudden and continual

changes which arise from the passions and caprices of bodies of men

living together. But savage man, living dispersed among other animals

and finding himself betimes in a situation to measure his strength

with theirs, soon comes to compare himself with them; and, perceiving

that he surpasses them more in adroitness than they surpass him in

strength, learns to be no longer afraid of them. Set a bear, or a wolf,

against a robust, agile, and resolute savage, as they all are, armed

with stones and a good cudgel, and you will see that the danger will

be at least on both sides, and that, after a few trials of this kind,

wild beasts, which are not fond of attacking each other, will not be at

all ready to attack man, whom they will have found to be as wild and

ferocious as themselves. With regard to such animals as have really

more strength than man has adroitness, he is in the same situation as

all weaker animals, which notwithstanding are still able to subsist;

except indeed that he has the advantage that, being equally swift of

foot, and finding an almost certain place of refuge in every tree, he

is at liberty to take or leave it at every encounter, and thus to fight

or fly, as he chooses. Add to this that it does not appear that any

animal naturally makes war on man, except in case of self-defence or

excessive hunger, or betrays any of those violent antipathies, which

seem to indicate that one species is intended by nature for the food of

another.

This is doubtless why negroes and savages are so little afraid of

the wild beasts they may meet in the woods. The Caraibs of Venezuela

among others live in this respect in absolute security and without the

smallest inconvenience. Though they are almost naked, Francis Correal

tells us, they expose themselves freely in the woods, armed only

with bows and arrows; but no one has ever heard of one of them being

devoured by wild beasts.

But man has other enemies more formidable, against which he is not

provided with such means of defence: these are the natural infirmities

of infancy, old age, and illness of every kind, melancholy proofs of

our weakness, of which the two first are common to all animals, and

the last belongs chiefly to man in a state of society. With regard to

infancy, it is observable that the mother, carrying her child always

with her, can nurse it with much greater ease than the females of many

other animals, which are forced to be perpetually going and coming,

with great fatigue, one way to find subsistence, and another to suckle

or feed their young. It is true that if the woman happens to perish,

the infant is in great danger of perishing with her; but this risk is

common to many other species of animals, whose young take a long time

before they are able to provide for themselves. And if our infancy is

longer than theirs, our lives are longer in proportion; so that all

things are in this respect fairly equal; though there are other rules

to be considered regarding the duration of the first period of life,

and the number of young, which do not affect the present subject. In

old age, when men are less active and perspire little, the need for

food diminishes with the ability to provide it. As the savage state

also protects them from gout and rheumatism, and old age is, of all

ills, that which human aid can least alleviate, they cease to be,

without others perceiving that they are no more, and almost without

perceiving it themselves.

With respect to sickness, I shall not repeat the vain and false

declamations which most healthy people pronounce against medicine;

but I shall ask if any solid observations have been made from which

it may be justly concluded that, in the countries where the art of

medicine is most neglected, the mean duration of man's life is less

than in those where it is most cultivated. How indeed can this be

the case, if we bring on ourselves more diseases than medicine can

furnish remedies? The great inequality in manner of living, the extreme

idleness of some, and the excessive labour of others, the easiness

of exciting and gratifying our sensual appetites, the too exquisite

foods of the wealthy which overheat and fill them with indigestion,

and, on the other hand, the unwholesome food of the poor, often, bad

as it is, insufficient for their needs, which induces them, when

opportunity offers, to eat voraciously and overcharge their stomachs;

all these, together with sitting up late, and excesses of every kind,

immoderate transports of every passion, fatigue, mental exhaustion, the

innumerable pains and anxieties inseparable from every condition of

life, by which the mind of man is incessantly tormented; these are too

fatal proofs that the greater part of our ills are of our own making,

and that we might have avoided them nearly all by adhering to that

simple, uniform and solitary manner of life which nature prescribed.

If she destined man to be healthy, I venture to declare that a state

of reflection is a state contrary to, nature, and that a thinking man

is a depraved animal. When we think of the good constitution of the

savages, at least of those whom we have not ruined with our spirituous

liquors, and reflect that they are troubled with hardly any disorders,

save wounds and old age, we are tempted to believe that, in following

the history of civil society, we shall be telling also that of human

sickness. Such, at least, was the opinion of Plato, who inferred from

certain remedies prescribed, or approved, by Podalirius and Machaon

at the siege of Troy, that several sicknesses which these remedies

gave rise to in his time, were not then known to mankind: and Celsus

tells us that diet, which is now so necessary, was first invented by

Hippocrates.

Being subject therefore to so few causes of sickness, man, in the state

of nature, can have no need of remedies, and still less of physicians:

nor is the human race in this respect worse off than other animals,

and it is easy to learn from hunters whether they meet with many infirm

animals in the course of the chase. It is certain they frequently meet

with such as carry the marks of having been considerably wounded, with

many that have had bones or even limbs broken, yet have been healed

without any Other surgical assistance than that of time, or any other

regimen than that of their ordinary life. At the same time their cures

seem not to have been less perfect, for their not having been tortured

by incisions, poisoned with drugs, or wasted by fasting. In short,

however useful medicine, properly administered, may be among us, it is

certain that, if the savage, when he is sick and left to himself, has

nothing to hope but from nature, he has, on the other hand, nothing to

fear but from his disease; which renders his situation often preferable

to our own.

We should beware, therefore, of confounding the savage man with the

men we have daily before our eyes. Nature treats all the animals left

to her care with a predilection that seems to show how jealous she

is of that right. The horse, the cat, the bull, and even the ass are

generally of greater stature, and always more robust, and have more

vigour, strength and courage, when they run wild in the forests than

when bred in the stall. By becoming domesticated, they lose half these

advantages; and it seems as if all our care to feed and treat them well

serves only to deprave them. It is thus with man also: as he becomes

sociable and a slave, he grows weak, timid and servile; his effeminate

way of life totally enervates his strength and courage. To this it may

be added that there is still a greater difference between savage and

civilised man, than between wild and tame beasts: for men and brutes

having been treated alike by nature, the several conveniences in which

men indulge themselves still more than they do their beasts, are so

many additional causes of their deeper degeneracy.

It is not therefore so great a misfortune to these primitive men, nor

so great an obstacle to their preservation, that they go naked, have no

dwellings and lack all the superfluities which we think so necessary.

If their skins are not covered with hair, they have no need of such

covering in warm climates; and, in cold countries, they soon learn

to appropriate the skins of the beasts they have overcome. If they

have but two legs to run with, they have two arms to defend themselves

with, and provide for their wants. Their children are slowly and with

difficulty taught to walk; but their mothers are able to carry them

with ease; advantage which other animals lack, as the mother, if

pursued, is forced either to abandon her young, or to regulate her

pace by theirs. Unless, in short, we suppose a singular and fortuitous

concurrence of circumstances of which I shall speak later, and

which would be unlikely to exist, it is plain in every state of the

case, that the man who first made himself clothes or a dwelling was

furnishing himself with things not at all necessary; for he had till

then done without them, and there is no reason why he should not have

been able to put up in manhood with the same kind of life as had been

his in infancy.

Solitary, indolent, and perpetually accompanied by danger, the savage

cannot but be fond of sleep; his sleep too must be light, like that of

the animals, which think but little and may be said to slumber all the

time they do not think. Self-preservation being his chief and almost

sole concern, he must exercise most those faculties which are most

concerned with attack or defence, either for overcoming his prey, or

for preventing him from becoming the prey of other animals. On the

other hand, those organs which are perfected only by softness and

sensuality will remain in a gross and imperfect state, incompatible

with any sort of delicacy; so that, his senses being divided on this

head, his touch and taste will be extremely coarse, his sight, hearing

and smell exceedingly fine and subtle. Such in general is the animal

condition, and such, according to the narratives of travellers, is that

of most savage nations. It is therefore no matter for surprise that

the Hottentots of the Cape of Good Hope distinguish ships at sea, with

the naked eye, at as great a distance as the Dutch can do with their

telescopes; or that the savages of America should trace the Spaniards,

by their smell, as well as the best dogs could have done; or that

these barbarous peoples feel no pain in going naked, or that they use

large quantities of piemento with their food, and drink the strongest

European liquors like water.

Hitherto I have considered merely the physical man; let us now take a

view of him on his metaphysical and moral side.

I see nothing in any animal but an ingenious machine, to which nature

hath given senses to wind itself up, and to guard itself, to a certain

degree, against anything that might tend to disorder or destroy it.

I perceive exactly the same things in the human machine, with this

difference, that in the operations of the brute, nature is the sole

agent, whereas man has some share in his own operations, in his

character as a free agent. The one chooses and refuses by instinct, the

other from an act of free-will: hence the brute cannot deviate from the

rule prescribed to it, even when it would be advantageous for it to do

so; and, on the contrary, man frequently deviates from such rules to

his own prejudice. Thus a pigeon would be starved to death by the side

of a dish of the choicest meats, and a cat on a heap of fruit or grain;

though it is certain that either might find nourishment in the foods

which it thus rejects with disdain, did it think of trying them. Hence

it is that dissolute men run into excesses which bring on fevers and

death; because the mind depraves the senses, and the will continues to

speak when nature is silent.

Every animal has ideas, since it has senses; it even combines those

ideas in a certain degree; and it is only in degree that man differs,

in this respect, from the brute. Some philosophers have even maintained

that there is a greater difference between one man and another than

between some men and some beasts. It is not, therefore, so much the

understanding that constitutes the specific difference between the man

and the brute, as the human quality of free-agency. Nature lays her

commands on every animal, and the brute obeys her voice. Man receives

the same impulsion, but at the same time knows himself at liberty

to acquiesce or resist: and it is particularly in his consciousness

of this liberty that the spirituality of his soul is displayed. For

physics may explain, in some measure, the mechanism of the senses

and the formation of ideas; but in the power of willing or rather of

choosing, and in the feeling of this power, nothing is to be found but

acts which are purely spiritual and wholly inexplicable by the laws of

mechanism.

However, even if the difficulties attending all these questions

should still leave room for difference in this respect between men and

brutes, there is another very specific quality which distinguishes

them, and which will admit of no dispute. This is the faculty of

self-improvement, which, by the help of circumstances, gradually

develops all the rest of our faculties, and is inherent in the species

as in the individual: whereas a brute is, at the end of a few months,

all he will ever be during his whole life, and his species, at the

end of a thousand years, exactly what it was the first year of that

thousand. Why is man alone liable to grow into a dotard? Is it not

because he returns, in this, to his primitive state; and that, while

the brute, which has acquired nothing and has therefore nothing to

lose, still retains the force of instinct, man, who loses, by age

or accident, all that his _perfectibility_ had enabled him to gain,

falls by this means lower than the brutes themselves? It would be

melancholy, were we forced to admit that this distinctive and almost

unlimited faculty is the source of all human misfortunes; that it is

this which, in time, draws man out of his original state, in which

he would have spent his days insensibly in peace and innocence; that

it is this faculty, which, successively producing in different ages

his discoveries and his errors, his vices and his virtues, makes him

at length a tyrant both over himself and over nature.[1] It would be

shocking to be obliged to regard as a benefactor the man who first

suggested to the Oroonoko Indians the use of the boards they apply to

the temples of their children, which secure to them some part at least

of their imbecility and original happiness.

Savage man, left by nature solely to the direction of instinct, or

rather indemnified for what he may lack by faculties capable at first

of supplying its place, and afterwards of raising him much above it,

must accordingly begin with purely animal functions: thus seeing and

feeling must be his first condition, which would be common to him and

all other animals. To will, and not to will, to desire and to fear,

must be the first, and almost the only operations of his soul, till new

circumstances occasion new developments of his faculties.

Whatever moralists may hold, the human understanding is greatly

indebted to the passions, which, it is universally allowed, are also

much indebted to the understanding. It is by the activity of the

passions that pur reason is improved; for we desire knowledge only

because we wish to enjoy; and it is impossible to conceive any reason

why a person who has neither fears nor desires should give himself the

trouble of reasoning. The passions, again, originate in our wants,

and their progress depends on that of our knowledge; for we cannot

desire or fear anything, except from the idea we have of it, or from

the simple impulse of nature. Now savage man, being destitute of every

species of intelligence, can have no passions save those of the latter

kind: his desires never go beyond his physical wants. The only goods

he recognises in the universe are food, a female, and sleep: the only

evils he fears are pain and hunger. I say pain, and not death: for

no animal can know what it is to die; the knowledge of death and its

terrors being one of the first acquisitions made by man in departing

from an animal state.

It would be easy, were it necessary, to support this opinion by facts,

and to show that, in all the nations of the world, the progress

of the understanding has been exactly proportionate to the wants

which the peoples had received from nature, or been subjected to by

circumstances, and in consequence to the passions that induced them to

provide for those necessities. I might instance the arts, rising up in

Egypt and expanding with the inundation of the Nile. I might follow

their progress into Greece, where they took root afresh, grew up and

towered to the skies, among the rocks and sands of Attica, without

being able to germinate on the fertile banks of the Eurotas: I might

observe that in general, the people of the North are more industrious

than those of the South, because they cannot get on so well without

being so: as if nature wanted to equalise matters by giving their

understandings the fertility she had refused to their soil.

But who does not see, without recurring to the uncertain testimony

of history, that everything seems to remove from savage man both the

temptation and the means of changing his condition? His imagination

paints no pictures; his heart makes no demands on him. His few wants

are so readily supplied, and he is so far from having the knowledge

which is needful to make him want more, that he can have neither

foresight nor curiosity. The face of nature becomes indifferent to

him as it grows familiar. He sees in it always the same order, the

same successions: he has not understanding enough to wonder at the

greatest miracles; nor is it in his mind that we can expect to find

that philosophy man needs, if he is to know how to notice for once what

he sees every day. His soul, which nothing disturbs, is wholly wrapped

up in the feeling of its present existence, without any idea of the

future, however near at hand; while his projects, as limited as his

views, hardly extend to the close of day. Such, even at present, is the

extent of the native Caribean's foresight: he will improvidently sell

you his cotton-bed in the morning, and come crying in the evening to

buy it again, not having foreseen he would want it again the next night.