Discourse on Inequality

Chapter 3

SECOND PART

The first man, who, after enclosing a piece of ground, took it into

his head to say, "This is mine," and found people simple enough to

believe him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes,

how many wars, how many murders, how many misfortunes and horrors,

would that man have saved the human species, who pulling up the stakes

or filling up the ditches should have cried to his fellows: Be sure

not to listen to this imposter; you are lost, if you forget that the

fruits of the earth belong equally to us all, and the earth itself to

nobody! But it is highly probable that things were now come to such a

pass, that they could not continue much longer in the same way; for as

this idea of property depends on several prior ideas which could only

spring up gradually one after another, it was not formed all at once

in the human mind: men must have made great progress; they must have

acquired a great stock of industry and knowledge, and transmitted and

increased it from age to age before they could arrive at this last

term of the state of nature. Let us therefore take up things a little

higher, and collect into one point of view, and in their most natural

order, this slow succession of events and mental improvements.

The first sentiment of man was that of his existence, his first care

that of preserving it. The productions of the earth yielded him all

the assistance he required; instinct prompted him to make use of them.

Among the various appetites, which made him at different times

experience different modes of existence, there was one that excited

him to perpetuate his species; and this blind propensity, quite void

of anything like pure love or affection, produced nothing but an act

that was merely animal. The present heat once allayed, the sexes took

no further notice of each other, and even the child ceased to have any

tie in his mother, the moment he ceased to want her assistance.

Such was the condition of infant man; such was the life of an animal

confined at first to pure sensations, and so far from harbouring any

thought of forcing her gifts from nature, that he scarcely availed

himself of those which she offered to him of her own accord. But

difficulties soon arose, and there was a necessity for learning how to

surmount them: the height of some trees, which prevented his reaching

their fruits; the competition of other animals equally fond of the

same fruits; the fierceness of many that even aimed at his life; these

were so many circumstances, which obliged him to apply to bodily

exercise. There was a necessity for becoming active, swift-footed, and

sturdy in battle. The natural arms, which are stones and the branches

of trees, soon offered themselves to his assistance. He learned to

surmount the obstacles of nature, to contend in case of necessity with

other animals, to dispute his subsistence even with other men, or

indemnify himself for the loss of whatever he found himself obliged to

part with to the strongest.

In proportion as the human species grew more numerous, and extended

itself, its pains likewise multiplied and increased. The difference

of soils, climates and seasons, might have forced men to observe some

difference in their way of living. Bad harvests, long and severe

winters, and scorching summers which parched up all the fruits of the

earth, required extraordinary exertions of industry. On the sea shore,

and the banks of rivers, they invented the line and the hook, and

became fishermen and ichthyophagous. In the forests they made

themselves bows and arrows, and became huntsmen and warriors. In the

cold countries they covered themselves with the skins of the beasts

they had killed; thunder, a volcano, or some happy accident made them

acquainted with fire, a new resource against the rigours of winter:

they discovered the method of preserving this element, then that of

reproducing it, and lastly the way of preparing with it the flesh of

animals, which heretofore they devoured raw from the carcass.

This reiterated application of various beings to himself, and to one

another, must have naturally engendered in the mind of man the idea of

certain relations. These relations, which we express by the words,

great, little, strong, weak, swift, slow, fearful, bold, and the like,

compared occasionally, and almost without thinking of it, produced in

him some kind of reflection, or rather a mechanical prudence, which

pointed out to him the precautions most essential to his preservation

and safety.

The new lights resulting from this development increased his

superiority over other animals, by making him sensible of it. He laid

himself out to ensnare them; he played them a thousand tricks; and

though several surpassed him in strength or in swiftness, he in time

became the master of those that could be of any service to him, and a

sore enemy to those that could do him any mischief. 'Tis thus, that

the first look he gave into himself produced the first emotion of

pride in him; 'tis thus that, at a time he scarce knew how to

distinguish between the different ranks of existence, by attributing

to his species the first rank among animals in general, he prepared

himself at a distance to pretend to it as an individual among those of

his own species in particular.

Though other men were not to him what they are to us, and he had

scarce more intercourse with them than with other animals, they were

not overlooked in his observations. The conformities, which in time

he might discover between them, and between himself and his female,

made him judge of those he did not perceive; and seeing that they all

behaved as himself would have done in similar circumstances, he

concluded that their manner of thinking and willing was quite

conformable to his own; and this important truth, when once engraved

deeply on his mind, made him follow, by a presentiment as sure as any

logic, and withal much quicker, the best rules of conduct, which for

the sake of his own safety and advantage it was proper he should

observe towards them.

Instructed by experience that the love of happiness is the sole

principle of all human actions, he found himself in a condition to

distinguish the few cases, in which common interest might authorize

him to build upon the assistance of his fellows, and those still

fewer, in which a competition of interests might justly render it

suspected. In the first case he united with them in the same flock, or

at most by some kind of free association which obliged none of its

members, and lasted no longer than the transitory necessity that had

given birth to it. In the second case every one aimed at his own

private advantage, either by open force if he found himself strong

enough, or by cunning and address if he thought himself too weak to

use violence.

Such was the manner in which men might have insensibly acquired some

gross idea of their mutual engagements and the advantage of fulfilling

them, but this only as far as their present and sensible interest

required; for as to foresight they were utter strangers to it, and far

from troubling their heads about a distant futurity, they scarce

thought of the day following. Was a deer to be taken? Every one saw

that to succeed he must faithfully stand to his post; but suppose a

hare to have slipped by within reach of any one of them, it is not to

be doubted but he pursued it without scruple, and when he had seized

his prey never reproached himself with having made his companions miss

theirs.

We may easily conceive that such an intercourse scarce required a more

refined language than that of crows and monkeys, which flock together

almost in the same manner. Inarticulate exclamations, a great many

gestures, and some imitative sounds, must have been for a long time

the universal language of mankind, and by joining to these in every

country some articulate and conventional sounds, of which, as I have

already hinted, it is not very easy to explain the institution, there

arose particular languages, but rude, imperfect, and such nearly as

are to be found at this day among several savage nations. My pen

straightened by the rapidity of time, the abundance of things I have

to say, and the almost insensible progress of the first improvements,

flies like an arrow over numberless ages, for the slower the

succession of events, the quicker I may allow myself to be in relating

them.

At length, these first improvements enabled man to improve at a

greater rate. Industry grew perfect in proportion as the mind became

more enlightened. Men soon ceasing to fall asleep under the first

tree, or take shelter in the first cavern, lit upon some hard and

sharp kinds of stone resembling spades or hatchets, and employed them

to dig the ground, cut down trees, and with the branches build huts,

which they afterwards bethought themselves of plastering over with

clay or dirt. This was the epoch of a first revolution, which produced

the establishment and distinction of families, and which introduced a

species of property, and along with it perhaps a thousand quarrels and

battles. As the strongest however were probably the first to make

themselves cabins, which they knew they were able to defend, we may

conclude that the weak found it much shorter and safer to imitate than

to attempt to dislodge them: and as to those, who were already

provided with cabins, no one could have any great temptation to seize

upon that of his neighbour, not so much because it did not belong to

him, as because it could be of no service to him; and as besides to

make himself master of it, he must expose himself to a very sharp

conflict with the present occupiers.

The first developments of the heart were the effects of a new

situation, which united husbands and wives, parents and children,

under one roof; the habit of living together gave birth to the

sweetest sentiments the human species is acquainted with, conjugal and

paternal love. Every family became a little society, so much the more

firmly united, as a mutual attachment and liberty were the only bonds

of it; and it was now that the sexes, whose way of life had been

hitherto the same, began to adopt different manners and customs. The

women became more sedentary, and accustomed themselves to stay at home

and look after the children, while the men rambled abroad in quest of

subsistence for the whole family. The two sexes likewise by living a

little more at their ease began to lose somewhat of their usual

ferocity and sturdiness; but if on the one hand individuals became

less able to engage separately with wild beasts, they on the other

were more easily got together to make a common resistance against

them.

In this new state of things, the simplicity and solitariness of man's

life, the limitedness of his wants, and the instruments which he had

invented to satisfy them, leaving him a great deal of leisure, he

employed it to supply himself with several conveniences unknown to his

ancestors; and this was the first yoke he inadvertently imposed upon

himself, and the first source of mischief which he prepared for his

children; for besides continuing in this manner to soften both body

and mind, these conveniences having through use lost almost all their

aptness to please, and even degenerated into real wants, the privation

of them became far more intolerable than the possession of them had

been agreeable; to lose them was a misfortune, to possess them no

happiness.

Here we may a little better discover how the use of speech insensibly

commences or improves in the bosom of every family, and may likewise

from conjectures concerning the manner in which divers particular

causes might have propagated language, and accelerated its progress by

rendering it every day more and more necessary. Great inundations or

earthquakes surrounded inhabited districts with water or precipices,

portions of the continent were by revolutions of the globe torn off

and split into islands. It is obvious that among men thus collected,

and forced to live together, a common idiom must have started up much

sooner, than among those who freely wandered through the forests of

the main land. Thus it is very possible that the inhabitants of the

islands formed in this manner, after their first essays in navigation,

brought among us the use of speech; and it is very probable at least

that society and languages commenced in islands and even acquired

perfection there, before the inhabitants of the continent knew

anything of either.

Everything now begins to wear a new aspect. Those who heretofore

wandered through the woods, by taking to a more settled way of life,

gradually flock together, coalesce into several separate bodies, and

at length form in every country distinct nations, united in character

and manners, not by any laws or regulations, but by an uniform manner

of life, a sameness of provisions, and the common influence of the

climate. A permanent neighborhood must at last infallibly create some

connection between different families. The transitory commerce

required by nature soon produced, among the youth of both sexes living

in contiguous cabins, another kind of commerce, which besides being

equally agreeable is rendered more durable by mutual intercourse. Men

begin to consider different objects, and to make comparisons; they

insensibly acquire ideas of merit and beauty, and these soon produce

sentiments of preference. By seeing each other often they contract a

habit, which makes it painful not to see each other always. Tender and

agreeable sentiments steal into the soul, and are by the smallest

opposition wound up into the most impetuous fury: Jealousy kindles

with love; discord triumphs; and the gentlest of passions requires

sacrifices of human blood to appease it.

In proportion as ideas and sentiments succeed each other, and the head

and the heart exercise themselves, men continue to shake off their

original wildness, and their connections become more intimate and

extensive. They now begin to assemble round a great tree: singing and

dancing, the genuine offspring of love and leisure, become the

amusement or rather the occupation of the men and women, free from

care, thus gathered together. Every one begins to survey the rest, and

wishes to be surveyed himself; and public esteem acquires a value. He

who sings or dances best; the handsomest, the strongest, the most

dexterous, the most eloquent, comes to be the most respected: this was

the first step towards inequality, and at the same time towards vice.

From these first preferences there proceeded on one side vanity and

contempt, on the other envy and shame; and the fermentation raised by

these new leavens at length produced combinations fatal to happiness

and innocence.

Men no sooner began to set a value upon each other, and know what

esteem was, than each laid claim to it, and it was no longer safe for

any man to refuse it to another. Hence the first duties of civility

and politeness, even among savages; and hence every voluntary injury

became an affront, as besides the mischief, which resulted from it as

an injury, the party offended was sure to find in it a contempt for

his person more intolerable than the mischief itself. It was thus that

every man, punishing the contempt expressed for him by others in

proportion to the value he set upon himself, the effects of revenge

became terrible, and men learned to be sanguinary and cruel. Such

precisely was the degree attained by most of the savage nations with

whom we are acquainted. And it is for want of sufficiently

distinguishing ideas, and observing at how great a distance these

people were from the first state of nature, that so many authors have

hastily concluded that man is naturally cruel, and requires a regular

system of police to be reclaimed; whereas nothing can be more gentle

than he in his primitive state, when placed by nature at an equal

distance from the stupidity of brutes, and the pernicious good sense

of civilized man; and equally confined by instinct and reason to the

care of providing against the mischief which threatens him, he is

withheld by natural compassion from doing any injury to others, so far

from being ever so little prone even to return that which he has

received. For according to the axiom of the wise Locke, Where there is

no property, there can be no injury.

But we must take notice, that the society now formed and the relations

now established among men required in them qualities different from

those, which they derived from their primitive constitution; that as a

sense of morality began to insinuate itself into human actions, and

every man, before the enacting of laws, was the only judge and avenger

of the injuries he had received, that goodness of heart suitable to

the pure state of nature by no means suited infant society; that it

was necessary punishments should become severer in the same proportion

that the opportunities of offending became more frequent, and the

dread of vengeance add strength to the too weak curb of the law. Thus,

though men were become less patient, and natural compassion had

already suffered some alteration, this period of the development of

the human faculties, holding a just mean between the indolence of the

primitive state, and the petulant activity of self-love, must have

been the happiest and most durable epoch. The more we reflect on this

state, the more convinced we shall be, that it was the least subject

of any to revolutions, the best for man, and that nothing could have

drawn him out of it but some fatal accident, which, for the public

good, should never have happened. The example of the savages, most of

whom have been found in this condition, seems to confirm that mankind

was formed ever to remain in it, that this condition is the real youth

of the world, and that all ulterior improvements have been so many

steps, in appearance towards the perfection of individuals, but in

fact towards the decrepitness of the species.

As long as men remained satisfied with their rustic cabins; as long as

they confined themselves to the use of clothes made of the skins of

other animals, and the use of thorns and fish-bones, in putting these

skins together; as long as they continued to consider feathers and

shells as sufficient ornaments, and to paint their bodies of different

colours, to improve or ornament their bows and arrows, to form and

scoop out with sharp-edged stones some little fishing boats, or clumsy

instruments of music; in a word, as long as they undertook such works

only as a single person could finish, and stuck to such arts as did

not require the joint endeavours of several hands, they lived free,

healthy, honest and happy, as much as their nature would admit, and

continued to enjoy with each other all the pleasures of an independent

intercourse; but from the moment one man began to stand in need of

another's assistance; from the moment it appeared an advantage for one

man to possess the quantity of provisions requisite for two, all

equality vanished; property started up; labour became necessary; and

boundless forests became smiling fields, which it was found necessary

to water with human sweat, and in which slavery and misery were soon

seen to sprout out and grow with the fruits of the earth.

Metallurgy and agriculture were the two arts whose invention produced

this great revolution. With the poet, it is gold and silver, but with

the philosopher it is iron and corn, which have civilized men, and

ruined mankind. Accordingly both one and the other were unknown to the

savages of America, who for that very reason have always continued

savages; nay other nations seem to have continued in a state of

barbarism, as long as they continued to exercise one only of these

arts without the other; and perhaps one of the best reasons that can

be assigned, why Europe has been, if not earlier, at least more

constantly and better civilized than the other quarters of the world,

is that she both abounds most in iron and is best qualified to

produce corn.

It is a very difficult matter to tell how men came to know anything of

iron, and the art of employing it: for we are not to suppose that they

should of themselves think of digging it out of the mines, and

preparing it for fusion, before they knew what could be the result of

such a process. On the other hand, there is the less reason to

attribute this discovery to any accidental fire, as mines are formed

nowhere but in dry and barren places, and such as are bare of trees

and plants, so that it looks as if nature had taken pains to keep from

us so mischievous a secret. Nothing therefore remains but the

extraordinary circumstance of some volcano, which, belching forth

metallic substances ready fused, might have given the spectators a

notion of imitating that operation of nature; and after all we must

suppose them endued with an extraordinary stock of courage and

foresight to undertake so painful a work, and have, at so great a

distance, an eye to the advantages they might derive from it;

qualities scarcely suitable but to heads more exercised, than those of

such discoverers can be supposed to have been.

As to agriculture, the principles of it were known a long time before

the practice of it took place, and it is hardly possible that men,

constantly employed in drawing their subsistence from trees and

plants, should not have early hit on the means employed by nature for

the generation of vegetables; but in all probability it was very late

before their industry took a turn that way, either because trees,

which with their land and water game supplied them with sufficient

food, did not require their attention; or because they did not know

the use of corn; or because they had no instruments to cultivate it;

or because they were destitute of foresight in regard to future

necessities; or in fine, because they wanted means to hinder others

from running away with the fruit of their labours. We may believe that

on their becoming more industrious they began their agriculture by

cultivating with sharp stones and pointed sticks a few pulse or roots

about their cabins; and that it was a long time before they knew the

method of preparing corn, and were provided with instruments necessary

to raise it in large quantities; not to mention the necessity there

is, in order to follow this occupation and sow lands, to consent to

lose something at present to gain a great deal hereafter; a precaution

very foreign to the turn of man's mind in a savage state, in which, as

I have already taken notice, he can hardly foresee his wants from

morning to night.

For this reason the invention of other arts must have been necessary

to oblige mankind to apply to that of agriculture. As soon as men

were wanted to fuse and forge iron, others were wanted to maintain

them. The more hands were employed in manufactures, the fewer hands

were left to provide subsistence for all, though the number of mouths

to be supplied with food continued the same; and as some required

commodities in exchange for their iron, the rest at last found out the

method of making iron subservient to the multiplication of

commodities. Hence on the one hand husbandry and agriculture, and on

the other the art of working metals and of multiplying the uses of

them.

To the tilling of the earth the distribution of it necessarily

succeeded, and to property once acknowledged, the first rules of

justice: for to secure every man his own, every man must have

something. Moreover, as men began to extend their views to futurity,

and all found themselves in possession of more or less goods capable

of being lost, every one in particular had reason to fear, lest

reprisals should be made on him for any injury he might do to others.

This origin is so much the more natural, as it is impossible to

conceive how property can flow from any other source but industry; for

what can a man add but his labour to things which he has not made, in

order to acquire a property in them? 'Tis the labour of the hands

alone, which giving the husbandman a title to the produce of the land

he has tilled gives him a title to the land itself, at least till he

has gathered in the fruits of it, and so on from year to year; and

this enjoyment forming a continued possession is easily transformed

into a property. The ancients, says Grotius, by giving to Ceres the

epithet of Legislatrix, and to a festival celebrated in her honour the

name of Thesmorphoria, insinuated that the distribution of lands

produced a new kind of right; that is, the right of property different

from that which results from the law of nature.

Things thus circumstanced might have remained equal, if men's talents

had been equal, and if, for instance, the use of iron, and the

consumption of commodities had always held an exact proportion to each

other; but as this proportion had no support, it was soon broken. The

man that had most strength performed most labour; the most dexterous

turned his labour to best account; the most ingenious found out

methods of lessening his labour; the husbandman required more iron, or

the smith more corn, and while both worked equally, one earned a great

deal by his labour, while the other could scarce live by his. It is

thus that natural inequality insensibly unfolds itself with that

arising from a variety of combinations, and that the difference among

men, developed by the difference of their circumstances, becomes more

sensible, more permanent in its effects, and begins to influence in

the same proportion the condition of private persons.

Things once arrived at this period, it is an easy matter to imagine

the rest. I shall not stop to describe the successive inventions of

other arts, the progress of language, the trial and employments of

talents, the inequality of fortunes, the use or abuse of riches, nor

all the details which follow these, and which every one may easily

supply. I shall just give a glance at mankind placed in this new order

of things.

Behold then all our faculties developed; our memory and imagination at

work, self-love interested; reason rendered active; and the mind

almost arrived at the utmost bounds of that perfection it is capable

of. Behold all our natural qualities put in motion; the rank and

condition of every man established, not only as to the quantum of

property and the power of serving or hurting others, but likewise as

to genius, beauty, strength or address, merit or talents; and as these

were the only qualities which could command respect, it was found

necessary to have or at least to affect them. It was requisite for men

to be thought what they really were not. To be and to appear became

two very different things, and from this distinction sprang pomp and

knavery, and all the vices which form their train. On the other hand,

man, heretofore free and independent, was now in consequence of a

multitude of new wants brought under subjection, as it were, to all

nature, and especially to his fellows, whose slave in some sense he

became even by becoming their master; if rich, he stood in need of

their services, if poor, of their assistance; even mediocrity itself

could not enable him to do without them. He must therefore have been

continually at work to interest them in his happiness, and make them,

if not really, at least apparently find their advantage in labouring

for his: this rendered him sly and artful in his dealings with some,

imperious and cruel in his dealings with others, and laid him under

the necessity of using ill all those whom he stood in need of, as

often as he could not awe them into a compliance with his will, and

did not find it his interest to purchase it at the expense of real

services. In fine, an insatiable ambition, the rage of raising their

relative fortunes, not so much through real necessity, as to over-top

others, inspire all men with a wicked inclination to injure each

other, and with a secret jealousy so much the more dangerous, as to

carry its point with the greater security, it often puts on the face

of benevolence. In a word, sometimes nothing was to be seen but a

contention of endeavours on the one hand, and an opposition of

interests on the other, while a secret desire of thriving at the

expense of others constantly prevailed. Such were the first effects of

property, and the inseparable attendants of infant inequality.

Riches, before the invention of signs to represent them, could scarce

consist in anything but lands and cattle, the only real goods which

men can possess. But when estates increased so much in number and in

extent as to take in whole countries and touch each other, it became

impossible for one man to aggrandise himself but at the expense of

some other; and the supernumerary inhabitants, who were too weak or

too indolent to make such acquisitions in their turn, impoverished

without losing anything, because while everything about them changed

they alone remained the same, were obliged to receive or force their

subsistence from the hands of the rich. And hence began to flow,

according to the different characters of each, domination and slavery,

or violence and rapine. The rich on their side scarce began to taste

the pleasure of commanding, when they preferred it to every other; and

making use of their old slaves to acquire new ones, they no longer

thought of anything but subduing and enslaving their neighbours; like

those ravenous wolves, who having once tasted human flesh, despise

every other food, and devour nothing but men for the future.

It is thus that the most powerful or the most wretched, respectively

considering their power and wretchedness as a kind of title to the

substance of others, even equivalent to that of property, the equality

once broken was followed by the most shocking disorders. It is thus

that the usurpations of the rich, the pillagings of the poor, and the

unbridled passions of all, by stifling the cries of natural

compassion, and the as yet feeble voice of justice, rendered man

avaricious, wicked and ambitious. There arose between the title of the

strongest, and that of the first occupier a perpetual conflict, which

always ended in battery and bloodshed. Infant society became a scene

of the most horrible warfare: Mankind thus debased and harassed, and

no longer able to retreat, or renounce the unhappy acquisitions it had

made; labouring, in short merely to its confusion by the abuse of

those faculties, which in themselves do it so much honour, brought

itself to the very brink of ruin and destruction.

[Transcriber's Note: Some words which appear to be potential typos are

printed as such in the original book: These possible words include

cotemporaries and oftens. The paragraph starting with the words "This

odius system is even" contains unmatched quotes, which have been

reproduced as they appeared in the orginal. This work was transcribed

from a anthology (Harvard Classics Volume 34) published in 1910. The

editor of the entire series was Charles W. Eliot. The name of the

translator was not given, nor was the name of the author of the

introduction. Indented lines indicate embedded verse that should not

be re-wrapped.]