From Rousseau's Discourse on the Inequality Among Men (1754)
THE SECOND PART
-
THE first man who, having enclosed
a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is mine, and
found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil
society. From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors
and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the
stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows, "Beware of
listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the
fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody."
But there is great probability that things had then already come to such
a pitch, that they could no longer continue as they were; for the idea
of property depends on many prior ideas, which could only be acquired successively,
and cannot have been formed all at once in the human mind. Mankind must
have made very considerable progress, and acquired considerable knowledge
and industry which they must also have transmitted and increased from age
to age, before they arrived at this last point of the state of nature.
Let us then go farther back, and endeavour to unify under a single point
of view that slow succession of events and discoveries in the most natural
order.
- Man's first feeling was that of his own existence, and his first care
that of self-preservation. The produce of the earth furnished him with
all he needed, and instinct told him how to use it. Hunger and other appetites
made him at various times experience various modes of existence; and among
these was one which urged him to propagate his species — a blind propensity
that, having nothing to do with the heart, produced a merely animal act.
The want once gratified, the two sexes knew each other no more; and even
the offspring was nothing to its mother, as soon as it could do without
her.
- Such was the condition of infant man; the life of an animal limited
at first to mere sensations, and hardly profiting by the gifts nature bestowed
on him, much less capable of entertaining a thought of forcing anything
from her. But difficulties soon presented themselves, and it became necessary
to learn how to surmount them: the height of the trees, which prevented
him from gathering their fruits, the competition of other animals desirous
of the same fruits, and the ferocity of those who needed them for their
own preservation, all obliged him to apply himself to bodily exercises.
He had to be active, swift of foot, and vigorous in fight. Natural weapons,
stones and sticks, were easily found: he learnt to surmount the obstacles
of nature, to contend in case of necessity with other animals, and to dispute
for the means of subsistence even with other men, or to indemnify himself
for what he was forced to give up to a stronger.
- In proportion as the human race grew more numerous, men's cares increased.
The difference of soils, climates and seasons, must have introduced some
differences into their manner of living. Barren years, long and sharp winters,
scorching summers which parched the fruits of the earth, must have demanded
a new industry. On the seashore and the banks of rivers, they invented
the hook and line, and became fishermen and eaters of fish. In the forests
they made bows and arrows, and became huntsmen and warriors. In cold countries
they clothed themselves with the skins of the beasts they had slain. The
lightning, a volcano, or some lucky chance acquainted them with fire, a
new resource against the rigours of winter: they next learned how to preserve
this element, then how to reproduce it, and finally how to prepare with
it the flesh of animals which before they had eaten raw.
- This repeated relevance of various beings to himself, and one to another,
would naturally give rise in the human mind to the perceptions of certain
relations between them. Thus the relations which we denote by the terms,
great, small, strong, weak, swift, slow, fearful, bold, and the like, almost
insensibly compared at need, must have at length produced in him a kind
of reflection, or rather a mechanical prudence, which would indicate to
him the precautions most necessary to his security.
- The new intelligence which resulted from this development increased
his superiority over other animals, by making him sensible of it. He would
now endeavour, therefore, to ensnare them, would play them a thousand tricks,
and though many of them might surpass him in swiftness or in strength,
would in time become the master of some and the scourge of others. Thus,
the first time he looked into himself, he felt the first emotion of pride;
and, at a time when he scarce knew how to distinguish the different orders
of beings, by looking upon his species as of the highest order, he prepared
the way for assuming pre-eminence as an individual.
- Other men, it is true, were not then to him what they now are to us,
and he had no greater intercourse with them than with other animals; yet
they were not neglected in his observations. The conformities, which he
would in time discover between them, and between himself and his female,
led him to judge of others which were not then perceptible; and finding
that they all behaved as he himself would have done in like circumstances,
he naturally inferred that their manner of thinking and acting was altogether
in conformity with his own. This important truth, once deeply impressed
on his mind, must have induced him, from an intuitive feeling more certain
and much more rapid than any kind of reasoning, to pursue the rules of
conduct, which he had best observe towards them, for his own security and
advantage.
- Taught by experience that the love of well-being is the sole motive
of human actions, he found himself in a position to distinguish the few
cases, in which mutual interest might justify him in relying upon the assistance
of his fellows; and also the still fewer cases in which a conflict of interests
might give cause to suspect them. In the former case, he joined in the
same herd with them, or at most in some kind of loose association, that
laid no restraint on its members, and lasted no longer than the transitory
occasion that formed it. In the latter case, every one sought his own private
advantage, either by open force, if he thought himself strong enough, or
by address and cunning, if he felt himself the weaker.
- In this manner, men may have insensibly acquired some gross ideas of
mutual undertakings, and of the advantages of fulfilling them: that is,
just so far as their present and apparent interest was concerned: for they
were perfect strangers to foresight, and were so far from troubling themselves
about the distant future, that they hardly thought of the morrow. If a
deer was to be taken, every one saw that, in order to succeed, he must
abide faithfully by his post: but if a hare happened to come within the
reach of any one of them, it is not to be doubted that he pursued it without
scruple, and, having seized his prey, cared very little, if by so doing
he caused his companions to miss theirs.
- It is easy to understand that such intercourse would not require a language
much more refined than that of rooks or monkeys, who associate together
for much the same purpose. Inarticulate cries, plenty of gestures and some
imitative sounds, must have been for a long time the universal language;
and by the addition, in every country, of some conventional articulate
sounds (of which, as I have already intimated, the first institution is
not too easy to explain) particular languages were produced; but these
were rude and imperfect, and nearly such as are now to be found among some
savage nations.
- Hurried on by the rapidity of time, by the abundance of things I have
to say, and by the almost insensible progress of things in their beginnings,
I pass over in an instant a multitude of ages; for the slower the events
were in their succession, the more rapidly may they be described.
- These first advances enabled men to make others with greater rapidity.
In proportion as they grew enlightened, they grew industrious. They ceased
to fall asleep under the first tree, or in the first cave that afforded
them shelter; they invented several kinds of implements of hard and sharp
stones, which they used to dig up the earth, and to cut wood; they then
made huts out of branches, and afterwards learnt to plaster them over with
mud and clay. This was the epoch of a first revolution, which established
and distinguished families, and introduced a kind of property, in itself
the source of a thousand quarrels and conflicts. As, however, the strongest
were probably the first to build themselves huts which they felt themselves
able to defend, it may be concluded that the weak found it much easier
and safer to imitate, than to attempt to dislodge them: and of those who
were once provided with huts, none could have any inducement to appropriate
that of his neighbour; not indeed so much because it did not belong to
him, as because it could be of no use, and he could not make himself master
of it without exposing himself to a desperate battle with the family which
occupied it.
- The first expansions of the human heart were the effects of a novel
situation, which united husbands and wives, fathers and children, under
one roof. The habit of living together soon gave rise to the finest feelings
known to humanity, conjugal love and paternal affection. Every family became
a little society, the more united because liberty and reciprocal attachment
were the only bonds of its union. The sexes, whose manner of life had been
hitherto the same, began now to adopt different ways of living. The women
became more sedentary, and accustomed themselves to mind the hut and their
children, while the men went abroad in search of their common subsistence.
From living a softer life, both sexes also began to lose something of their
strength and ferocity: but, if individuals became to some extent less able
to encounter wild beasts separately, they found it, on the other hand,
easier to assemble and resist in common.
- The simplicity and solitude of man's life in this new condition, the
paucity of his wants, and the implements he had invented to satisfy them,
left him a great deal of leisure, which he employed to furnish himself
with many conveniences unknown to his fathers: and this was the first yoke
he inadvertently imposed on himself, and the first source of the evils
he prepared for his descendants. For, besides continuing thus to enervate
both body and mind, these conveniences lost with use almost all their power
to please, and even degenerated into real needs, till the want of them
became far more disagreeable than the possession of them had been pleasant.
Men would have been unhappy at the loss of them, though the possession
did not make them happy.
- We can here see a little better how the use of speech became established,
and insensibly improved in each family, and we may form a conjecture also
concerning the manner in which various causes may have extended and accelerated
the progress of language, by making it more and more necessary. Floods
or earthquakes surrounded inhabited districts with precipices or waters:
revolutions of the globe tore off portions from the continent, and made
them islands. It is readily seen that among men thus collected and compelled
to live together, a common idiom must have arisen much more easily than
among those who still wandered through the forests of the continent. Thus
it is very possible that after their first essays in navigation the islanders
brought over the use of speech to the continent: and it is at least very
probable that communities and languages were first established in islands,
and even came to perfection there before they were known on the mainland.
- Everything now begins to change its aspect. Men, who have up to now
been roving in the woods, by taking to a more settled manner of life, come
gradually together, form separate bodies, and at length in every country
arises a distinct nation, united in character and manners, not by regulations
or laws, but by uniformity of life and food, and the common influence of
climate. Permanent neighbourhood could not fail to produce, in time, some
connection between different families. Among young people of opposite sexes,
living in neighbouring huts, the transient commerce required by nature
soon led, through mutual intercourse, to another kind not less agreeable,
and more permanent. Men began now to take the difference between objects
into account, and to make comparisons; they acquired imperceptibly the
ideas of beauty and merit, which soon gave rise to feelings of preference.
In consequence of seeing each other often, they could not do without seeing
each other constantly. A tender and pleasant feeling insinuated itself
into their souls, and the least opposition turned it into an impetuous
fury: with love arose jealousy; discord triumphed, and human blood was
sacrificed to the gentlest of all passions.
- As ideas and feelings succeeded one another, and heart and head were
brought into play, men continued to lay aside their original wildness;
their private connections became every day more intimate as their limits
extended. They accustomed themselves to assemble before their huts round
a large tree; singing and dancing, the true offspring of love and leisure,
became the amusement, or rather the occupation, of men and women thus assembled
together with nothing else to do. Each one began to consider the rest,
and to wish to be considered in turn; and thus a value came to be attached
to public esteem. Whoever sang or danced best, whoever was the handsomest,
the strongest, the most dexterous, or the most eloquent, came to be of
most consideration; and this was the first step towards inequality, and
at the same time towards vice. From these first distinctions arose on the
one side vanity and contempt and on the other shame and envy: and the fermentation
caused by these new leavens ended by producing combinations fatal to innocence
and happiness.
- As soon as men began to value one another, and the idea of consideration
had got a footing in the mind, every one put in his claim to it, and it
became impossible to refuse it to any with impunity. Hence arose the first
obligations of civility even among savages; and every intended injury became
an affront; because, besides the hurt which might result from it, the party
injured was certain to find in it a contempt for his person,
which was
often more insupportable than the hurt itself.
- Thus, as every man punished the contempt shown him by others, in proportion
to his opinion of himself, revenge became terrible, and men bloody and
cruel. This is precisely the state reached by most of the savage nations
known to us: and it is for want of having made a proper distinction in
our ideas, and see how very far they already are from the state of nature,
that so many writers have hastily concluded that man is naturally cruel,
and requires civil institutions to make him more mild; whereas nothing
is more gentle than man in his primitive state, as he is placed by nature
at an equal distance from the stupidity of brutes, and the fatal ingenuity
of civilised man. Equally confined by instinct and reason to the sole care
of guarding himself against the mischiefs which threaten him, he is restrained
by natural compassion from doing any injury to others, and is not led to
do such a thing even in return for injuries received. For, according to
the axiom of the wise Locke, There can be no injury, where there is
no property.
- But it must be remarked that the society thus formed, and the relations
thus established among men, required of them qualities different from those
which they possessed from their primitive constitution. Morality began
to appear in human actions, and every one, before the institution of law,
was the only judge and avenger of the injuries done him, so that the goodness
which was suitable in the pure state of nature was no longer proper in
the new-born state of society. Punishments had to be made more severe,
as opportunities of offending became more frequent, and the dread of vengeance
had to take the place of the rigour of the law. Thus, though men had become
less patient, and their natural compassion had already suffered some diminution,
this period of expansion of the human faculties, keeping a just mean between
the indolence of the primitive state and the petulant activity of our egoism,
must have been the happiest and most stable of epochs. The more we reflect
on it, the more we shall find that this state was the least subject to
revolutions, and altogether the very best man could experience; so that
he can have departed from it only through some fatal accident, which, for
the public good, should never have happened. The example of savages, most
of whom have been found in this state, seems to prove that men were meant
to remain in it, that it is the real youth of the world, and that all subsequent
advances have been apparently so many steps towards the perfection of the
individual, but in reality towards the decrepitude of the species.
- So long as men remained content with their rustic huts, so long as they
were satisfied with clothes made of the skins of animals and sewn together
with thorns and fish-bones, adorned themselves only with feathers and shells,
and continued to paint their bodies different colours, to improve and beautify
their bows and arrows and to make with sharp-edged stones fishing boats
or clumsy musical instruments; in a word, so long as they undertook only
what a single person could accomplish, and confined themselves to such
arts as did not require the joint labour of several hands, they lived free,
healthy, honest and happy lives, so long as their nature allowed, and as
they continued to enjoy the pleasures of mutual and independent intercourse.
But from the moment one man began to stand in need of the help of another;
from the moment it appeared advantageous to any one man to have enough
provisions for two, equality disappeared, property was introduced, work
became indispensable, and vast forests became smiling fields, which man
had to water with the sweat of his brow, and where slavery and misery were
soon seen to germinate and grow up with the crops.