Jean-Jacques Rousseau · Complete work
Part Two, 2
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Sitôt que les hommes eurent commencé à s’apprécier mutuellement et que l’idée de la considération fut formée dans leur esprit, chacun prétendit y avoir droit, et il ne fut plus possible d’en manquer impunément pour personne. De là sortirent les premiers devoirs de la civilité, même parmi les sauvages, et de là tout tort volontaire devint un outrage, parce qu’avec le mal qui résultait de l’injure, l’offensé y voyait le mépris de sa personne souvent plus insupportable que le mal même. C’est ainsi que chacun punissant le mépris qu’on lui avait témoigné d’une manière proportionnée au cas qu’il faisait de lui-même, les vengeances devinrent terribles, et les hommes sanguinaires et cruels. Voilà précisément le degré où étaient parvenus la plupart des peuples sauvages qui nous sont connus; et c’est faute d’avoir suffisamment distingué les idées, et remarqué combien ces peuples étaient déjà loin du premier état de nature, que plusieurs se sont hâtés de conclure que l’homme est naturellement cruel et qu’il a besoin de police pour l’adoucir, tandis que rien n’est si doux que lui dans son état primitif, lorsque placé par la nature à des distances égales de la stupidité des brutes et des lumières funestes de l’homme civil, et borné également par l’instinct et par la raison à se garantir du mal qui le menace, il est retenu par la pitié naturelle de faire lui-même du mal à personne, sans y être porté par rien, même après en avoir reçu. Car, selon l’axiome du sage Locke, il ne saurait y avoir d’injure, où il n’y a point de propriété.
Mais il faut remarquer que la société commencée et les relations déjà établies entre les hommes exigeaient en eux des qualités différentes de celles qu’ils tenaient de leur constitution primitive; que la moralité commençant à s’introduire dans les actions humaines, et chacun avant les lois étant seul juge et vengeur des offenses qu’il avait reçues, la bonté convenable au pur état de nature n’était plus celle qui convenait à la société naissante; qu’il fallait que les punitions devinssent plus sévères à mesure que les occasions d’offenser devenaient plus fréquentes, et que c’était à la terreur des vengeances de tenir lieu du frein des lois. Ainsi quoique les hommes fussent devenus moins endurants, et que la pitié naturelle eût déjà souffert quelque altération, cette période du développement des facultés humaines, tenant un juste milieu entre l’indolence de l’état primitif et la pétulante activité de notre amour-propre, dut être l’époque la plus heureuse et la plus durable. Plus on y réfléchit, plus on trouve que cet état était le moins sujet aux révolutions, le meilleur à l’homme (Note 16), et qu’il n’en a dû sortir que par quelque funeste hasard qui pour l’utilité commune eût dû ne jamais arriver. L’exemple des sauvages qu’on a presque tous trouvés à ce point semble confirmer que le genre humain était fait pour y rester toujours, que cet état est la véritable jeunesse du monde, et que tous les progrès ultérieurs ont été en apparence autant de pas vers la perfection de l’individu, et en effet vers la décrépitude de l’espèce.
Tant que les hommes se contentèrent de leurs cabanes rustiques, tant qu’ils se bornèrent à coudre leurs habits de peaux avec des épines ou des arêtes, à se parer de plumes et de coquillages, à se peindre le corps de diverses couleurs, à perfectionner ou à embellir leurs arcs et leurs flèches, à tailler avec des pierres tranchantes quelques canots de pêcheurs ou quelques grossiers instruments de musique, en un mot tant qu’ils ne s’appliquèrent qu’à des ouvrages qu’un seul pouvait faire, et qu’à des arts qui n’avaient pas besoin du concours de plusieurs mains, ils vécurent libres, sains, bons et heureux autant qu’ils pouvaient l’être par leur nature, et continuèrent à jouir entre eux des douceurs d’un commerce indépendant: mais dès l’instant qu’un homme eut besoin du secours d’un autre; dès qu’on s’aperçut qu’il était utile à un seul d’avoir des provisions pour deux, l’égalité disparut, la propriété s’introduisit, le travail devint nécessaire et les vastes forêts se changèrent en des campagnes riantes qu’il fallut arroser de la sueur des hommes, et dans lesquelles on vit bientôt l’esclavage et la misère germer et croître avec les moissons.
La métallurgie et l’agriculture furent les deux arts dont l’invention produisit cette grande révolution. Pour le poète, c’est l’or et l’argent, mais pour le philosophe ce sont le fer et le blé qui ont civilisé les hommes et perdu le genre humain; aussi l’un et l’autre étaient-ils inconnus aux sauvages de l’Amérique qui pour cela sont toujours demeurés tels; les autres peuples semblent même être restés barbares tant qu’ils ont pratiqué l’un de ces arts sans l’autre; et l’une des meilleures raisons peut-être pourquoi l’Europe a été, sinon plus tôt, du moins plus constamment et mieux policée que les autres parties du monde, c’est qu’elle est à la fois la plus abondante en fer et la plus fertile en blé.
Il est très difficile de conjecturer comment les hommes sont parvenus à connaître et employer le fer: car il n’est pas croyable qu’ils aient imaginé d’eux-mêmes de tirer la matière de la mine et de lui donner les préparations nécessaires pour la mettre en fusion avant que de savoir ce qui en résulterait. D’un autre côté on peut d’autant moins attribuer cette découverte à quelque incendie accidentel que les mines ne se forment que dans des lieux arides et dénués d’arbres et de plantes, de sorte qu’on dirait que la nature avait pris des précautions pour nous dérober ce fatal secret. Il ne reste donc que la circonstance extraordinaire de quelque volcan qui, vomissant des matières métalliques en fusion, aura donné aux observateurs l’idée d’imiter cette opération de la nature; encore faut-il leur supposer bien du courage et de la prévoyance pour entreprendre un travail aussi pénible et envisager d’aussi loin les avantages qu’ils en pouvaient retirer; ce qui ne convient guère à des esprits déjà plus exercés que ceux-ci ne le devaient être.
Quant à l’agriculture, le principe en fut connu longtemps avant que la pratique en fût établie, et il n’est guère possible que les hommes sans cesse occupés à tirer leur subsistance des arbres et des plantes n’eussent assez promptement l’idée des voies que la nature emploie pour la génération des végétaux; mais leur industrie ne se tourna probablement que fort tard de ce côté-là, soit parce que les arbres, qui avec la chasse et la pêche fournissaient à leur nourriture, n’avaient pas besoin de leurs soins, soit faute de connaître l’usage du blé, soit faute d’instruments pour le cultiver, soit faute de prévoyance pour le besoin à venir, soit enfin faute de moyens pour empêcher les autres de s’approprier le fruit de leur travail. Devenus plus industrieux, on peut croire qu’avec des pierres aiguës et des bâtons pointus ils commencèrent par cultiver quelques légumes ou racines autour de leurs cabanes, longtemps avant de savoir préparer le blé, et d’avoir les instruments nécessaires pour la culture en grand, sans compter que, pour se livrer à cette occupation et ensemencer des terres, il faut se résoudre à perdre d’abord quelque chose pour gagner beaucoup dans la suite; précaution fort éloignée du tour d’esprit de l’homme sauvage qui, comme je l’ai dit, a bien de la peine à songer le matin à ses besoins du soir.
L’invention des autres arts fut donc nécessaire pour forcer le genre humain de s’appliquer à celui de l’agriculture. Dès qu’il fallut des hommes pour fondre et forger le fer, il fallut d’autres hommes pour nourrir ceux-là. Plus le nombre des ouvriers vint à se multiplier, moins il y eut de mains employées à fournir à la subsistance commune, sans qu’il y eût moins de bouches pour la consommer; et comme il fallut aux uns des denrées en échange de leur fer, les autres trouvèrent enfin le secret d’employer le fer à la multiplication des denrées. De là naquirent d’un côté le labourage et l’agriculture, et de l’autre l’art de travailler les métaux et d’en multiplier les usages.
De la culture des terres s’ensuivit nécessairement leur partage, et de la propriété une fois reconnue les premières règles de justice: car pour rendre à chacun le sien, il faut que chacun puisse avoir quelque chose; de plus les hommes commençant à porter leurs vues dans l’avenir, et se voyant tous quelques biens à perdre, il n’y en avait aucun qui n’eût à craindre pour soi la représaille des torts qu’il pouvait faire à autrui. Cette origine est d’autant plus naturelle, qu’il est impossible de concevoir l’idée de la propriété naissante d’ailleurs que de la main-d’œuvre; car on ne voit pas ce que, pour s’approprier les choses qu’il n’a point faites, l’homme y peut mettre de plus que son travail. C’est le seul travail qui, donnant droit au cultivateur sur le produit de la terre qu’il a labourée, lui en donne par conséquent sur le fonds, au moins jusqu’à la récolte, et ainsi d’année en année, ce qui, faisant une possession continue, se transforme aisément en propriété. Lorsque les Anciens, dit Grotius, ont donné à Cérès l’épithète de législatrice, et à une fête célébrée en son honneur le nom de Thesmophories, ils ont fait entendre par là que le partage des terres a produit une nouvelle sorte de droit. C’est-à-dire le droit de propriété, différent de celui qui résulte de loi naturelle.
Les choses en cet état eussent pu demeurer égales, si les talents eussent été égaux, et que, par exemple, l’emploi du fer et la consommation des denrées eussent toujours fait une balance exacte: mais la proportion que rien ne maintenait fut bientôt rompue; le plus fort faisait plus d’ouvrage; le plus adroit tirait meilleur parti du sien; le plus ingénieux trouvait des moyens d’abréger le travail; le laboureur avait plus besoin de fer, ou le forgeron plus besoin de blé, et en travaillant également, l’un gagnait beaucoup tandis que l’autre avait peine à vivre. C’est ainsi que l’inégalité naturelle se déploie insensiblement avec celle de combinaison et que les différences des hommes, développées par celles des circonstances, se rendent plus sensibles, plus permanentes dans leurs effets, et commencent à influer dans la même proportion sur le sort des particuliers.
Les choses étant parvenues à ce point, il est facile d’imaginer le reste. Je ne m’arrêterai pas à décrire l’invention successive des autres arts, le progrès des langues, l’épreuve et l’emploi des talents, l’inégalité des fortunes, l’usage ou l’abus des richesses, ni tous les détails qui suivent ceux-ci, et que chacun peut aisément suppléer. Je me bornerai seulement à jeter un coup d’œil sur le genre humain placé dans ce nouvel ordre de choses.
Voilà donc toutes nos facultés développées, la mémoire et l’imagination en jeu, l’amour-propre intéressé, la raison rendue active et l’esprit arrivé presque au terme de la perfection, dont il est susceptible. Voilà toutes les qualités naturelles mises en action, le rang et le sort de chaque homme établi, non seulement sur la quantité des biens et le pouvoir de servir ou de nuire, mais sur l’esprit, la beauté, la force ou l’adresse, sur le mérite ou les talents, et ces qualités étant les seules qui pouvaient attirer de la considération, il fallut bientôt les avoir ou les affecter, il fallut pour son avantage se montrer autre que ce qu’on était en effet. Être et paraître devinrent deux choses tout à fait différentes, et de cette distinction sortirent le faste imposant, la ruse trompeuse, et tous les vices qui en sont le cortège. D’un autre côté, de libre et indépendant qu’était auparavant l’homme, le voilà par une multitude de nouveaux besoins assujetti, pour ainsi dire, à toute la nature, et surtout à ses semblables dont il devient l’esclave en un sens, même en devenant leur maître; riche, il a besoin de leurs services; pauvre, il a besoin de leur secours, et la médiocrité ne le met point en état de se passer d’eux. Il faut donc qu’il cherche sans cesse à les intéresser à son sort, et à leur faire trouver en effet ou en apparence leur profit à travailler pour le sien: ce qui le rend fourbe et artificieux avec les uns, impérieux et dur avec les autres, et le met dans la nécessité d’abuser tous ceux dont il a besoin, quand il ne peut s’en faire craindre, et qu’il ne trouve pas son intérêt à les servir utilement. Enfin l’ambition dévorante, l’ardeur d’élever sa fortune relative, moins par un véritable besoin que pour se mettre au-dessus des autres, inspire à tous les hommes un noir penchant à se nuire mutuellement, une jalousie secrète d’autant plus dangereuse que, pour faire son coup plus en sûreté, elle prend souvent le masque de la bienveillance; en un mot, concurrence et rivalité d’une part, de l’autre opposition d’intérêt, et toujours le désir caché de faire son profit aux dépens d’autrui, tous ces maux sont le premier effet de la propriété et le cortège inséparable de l’inégalité naissante.
Avant qu’on eût inventé les signes représentatifs des richesses, elles ne pouvaient guère consister qu’en terres et en bestiaux, les seuls biens réels que les hommes puissent posséder. Or quand les héritages se furent accrus en nombre et en étendue au point de couvrir le sol entier et de se toucher tous, les uns ne purent plus s’agrandir qu’aux dépens des autres, et les surnuméraires que la faiblesse ou l’indolence avaient empêchés d’en acquérir à leur tour, devenus pauvres sans avoir rien perdu, parce que, tout changeant autour d’eux, eux seuls n’avaient point changé, furent obligés de recevoir ou de ravir leur subsistance de la main des riches, et de là commencèrent à naître, selon les divers caractères des uns et des autres, la domination et la servitude, ou la violence et les rapines. Les riches de leur côté connurent à peine le plaisir de dominer, qu’ils dédaignèrent bientôt tous les autres, et se servant de leurs anciens esclaves pour en soumettre de nouveaux, ils ne songèrent qu’à subjuguer et asservir leurs voisins; semblables à ces loups affamés qui ayant une fois goûté de la chair humaine rebutent toute autre nourriture et ne veulent plus que dévorer des hommes.
Musean translation
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from the complete French text (dedicatory epistle, preface, both parts and the notes) for fidelity, the author’s force and cadence, and modern clarity.
As soon as men began to value one another and the idea of esteem took shape in their minds, each claimed a right to it, and no one could be denied it without consequence. From this arose the first duties of civility, even among savages, and from this every deliberate wrong became an affront: beyond the harm caused by an injury, the person injured saw contempt for himself in it, often harder to bear than the harm itself. Thus, as each punished the contempt shown him in proportion to his own estimate of himself, acts of revenge became terrible, and men became bloodthirsty and cruel. This is precisely the stage most of the savage peoples known to us had reached. It is because several writers failed to distinguish ideas carefully enough and to notice how far these peoples already stood from the first state of nature that they hastened to conclude that man is naturally cruel and needs government to soften him. Yet nothing is gentler than man in his primitive condition, when nature has placed him at equal distances from the stupidity of beasts and the fatal enlightenment of civilized man, and when instinct and reason alike limit him to protecting himself from threatened harm. Natural pity restrains him from doing harm to anyone, since nothing impels him to it, even after he has himself suffered harm. For, according to the wise Locke's axiom, there can be no injury where there is no property.
But we must observe that once society had begun and relations were established among men, they needed qualities different from those their original constitution had given them. As moral considerations began to enter human actions, and before there were laws each man was the sole judge and avenger of the offenses he suffered, the goodness suited to the pure state of nature was no longer suited to emerging society. Punishments had to grow more severe as occasions for offense became more frequent, and the terror of revenge had to take the place of the restraint imposed by laws. Thus, although men had become less forbearing and natural pity had already suffered some change, this period in the development of human faculties, holding a just middle ground between the indolence of the primitive state and the restless activity of our amour-propre, must have been the happiest and most enduring age. The more we reflect on it, the more we find that this state was the least subject to upheaval, the best for man (Note 16), and that he must have left it only through some fatal accident that, for the common good, ought never to have happened. The example of savages, almost all of whom have been found at this stage, seems to confirm that the human race was made to remain there forever; that this state is the true youth of the world; and that all later progress has been, in appearance, so many steps toward the perfection of the individual, but in fact toward the decrepitude of the species.
So long as men were content with their rustic huts, so long as they confined themselves to stitching their skin garments with thorns or fishbones, adorning themselves with feathers and shells, painting their bodies in various colors, improving or decorating their bows and arrows, and carving a few fishing canoes or crude musical instruments with sharp stones—in short, so long as they devoted themselves only to tasks one person could accomplish and crafts that did not require the cooperation of several hands—they lived free, healthy, good, and happy to the extent their nature allowed, and continued to enjoy among themselves the pleasures of independent dealings. But the moment one man needed another's help, the moment people realized that it was useful for one person to hold provisions for two, equality disappeared, property entered in, work became necessary, and the vast forests turned into smiling fields that had to be watered with men's sweat, where slavery and misery were soon seen to sprout and grow along with the crops.
Metallurgy and agriculture were the two arts whose invention brought about this great revolution. For the poet, gold and silver civilized men and ruined the human race; for the philosopher, it was iron and wheat. Both were unknown to the savages of America, who for that reason have always remained as they were. Other peoples even seem to have remained barbarous so long as they practiced one of these arts without the other. And perhaps one of the best reasons Europe became, if not sooner, then more consistently and thoroughly civilized than other parts of the world is that it has both the greatest abundance of iron and the most fertile land for wheat.
It is very hard to conjecture how men came to know and use iron. We cannot believe that, before knowing what would result, they themselves thought of extracting material from a mine and subjecting it to the preparations needed to melt it. On the other hand, this discovery can hardly be attributed to an accidental fire, since mines form only in arid places bare of trees and plants, so that nature seems to have taken precautions to hide this fatal secret from us. There remains only the extraordinary circumstance of a volcano spewing molten metals and giving observers the idea of imitating this operation of nature. Even then we must suppose them to have had great courage and foresight to undertake so arduous a task and to envision from so far off the advantages they might gain from it; qualities scarcely fitting even for minds more practiced than theirs could have been.
As for agriculture, its principle was known long before its practice was established. Men constantly occupied in drawing their subsistence from trees and plants could hardly have failed to gain quite early some notion of the means nature uses to reproduce plants. But their ingenuity probably turned in this direction only very late: perhaps because trees, together with hunting and fishing, supplied their food without needing their care; perhaps because they did not know how to use wheat; perhaps because they lacked tools to cultivate it, foresight about future needs, or the means to prevent others from appropriating the fruit of their labor. Once they grew more skillful, we may believe that with sharp stones and pointed sticks they began by cultivating a few vegetables or roots around their huts, long before they knew how to prepare wheat or possessed the tools needed for large-scale cultivation. Besides, to take up this occupation and sow land, one must be willing to lose something at first in order to gain much later—a precaution far removed from the cast of mind of savage man, who, as I have said, finds it hard enough in the morning to think of his evening needs.
The invention of other arts was therefore needed to force the human race to take up agriculture. As soon as men were needed to smelt and forge iron, other men were needed to feed them. The more workers multiplied, the fewer hands were employed in supplying food for all, though there were no fewer mouths to consume it. And since some needed foodstuffs in exchange for their iron, others at last discovered the secret of using iron to increase the supply of foodstuffs. From this arose, on the one hand, tillage and agriculture, and on the other, the art of working metals and multiplying their uses.
Cultivating land necessarily led to its division, and once property was recognized, to the first rules of justice: for each person to receive what is his, each must be able to have something. Moreover, as men began to look toward the future and each saw that he had some possessions to lose, none could fail to fear for himself retaliation for wrongs he might do to others. This origin is all the more natural because it is impossible to conceive the emerging idea of property arising from anything but labor. What, apart from his labor, can man contribute to make things he has not made his own? Labor alone gives the cultivator a right to the produce of the land he has tilled, and consequently to the land itself, at least until harvest. Repeated year after year, this makes a continuous possession that readily turns into property. When the ancients, says Grotius, gave Ceres the epithet of lawgiver and a festival celebrated in her honor the name Thesmophoria, they meant by this that the division of lands had produced a new kind of right: the right of property, different from the right arising from natural law.
Things might have remained equal in this condition if talents had been equal and, for example, the use of iron and consumption of foodstuffs had always kept an exact balance. But nothing sustained that proportion, and it was soon broken. The stronger man did more work; the more skillful made better use of his; the more ingenious found ways to shorten labor. The plowman needed more iron, or the smith more wheat, and though they worked equally, one gained much while the other could barely live. Thus natural inequality gradually unfolds alongside inequality born of social arrangements. Differences between men, developed by differences in circumstance, become more perceptible, more lasting in their effects, and begin in like measure to influence the fortunes of individuals.
With things brought to this point, the rest is easy to imagine. I shall not pause to describe the successive invention of other arts, the progress of languages, the testing and employment of talents, the inequality of fortunes, the use or abuse of wealth, or all the details that follow, which everyone can easily supply. I shall confine myself to a glance at the human race placed in this new order of things.
Here, then, are all our faculties developed: memory and imagination at work, amour-propre engaged, reason made active, and the mind brought almost to the limit of the perfection it can attain. Here are all our natural qualities called into play, the rank and fate of each man determined not only by the amount of his property and his power to help or harm, but by intelligence, beauty, strength or skill, merit or talents. And since these were the only qualities that could win esteem, one soon had to possess them or pretend to possess them; for one's own advantage one had to appear other than one really was. Being and seeming became two entirely different things, and from this division sprang ostentatious display, deceitful cunning, and all the vices that attend them. On the other hand, man, formerly free and independent, now finds himself, through a multitude of new needs, subject, so to speak, to all of nature and above all to his fellows. In a sense he becomes their slave even as he becomes their master: if rich, he needs their services; if poor, he needs their help; even a modest livelihood does not put him in a position to do without them. He must therefore continually seek to interest them in his fate and make them find it, whether in fact or in appearance, profitable to work for his profit. This makes him deceitful and scheming with some, imperious and harsh with others, and compels him to exploit all those he needs when he cannot make them fear him and does not find it in his interest to serve them usefully. Finally, devouring ambition and the eagerness to raise one's relative fortune, less from any real need than to place oneself above others, inspire in all men a dark inclination to harm one another, a secret jealousy all the more dangerous because it often wears the mask of goodwill in order to strike more safely. In short, competition and rivalry on one side, conflicting interests on the other, and everywhere the hidden desire to profit at another's expense: all these evils are the first effect of property and the inseparable retinue of emerging inequality.
Before signs representing wealth were invented, wealth could scarcely consist of anything but lands and livestock, the only real possessions men could have. Now when holdings increased in number and extent until they covered the entire ground and bordered on one another, some could grow larger only at the expense of others. Those left over, whom weakness or indolence had prevented from acquiring holdings in their turn, became poor without having lost anything: everything around them had changed while they alone had not. They were forced to receive their subsistence from the hands of the rich or to wrest it from them. From this began to arise, according to the differing characters of each, dominion and servitude, or violence and plunder. The rich, for their part, had scarcely tasted the pleasure of ruling before they came to disdain all other pleasures. Using their old slaves to subdue new ones, they thought only of subjugating and enslaving their neighbors, like ravenous wolves that, having once tasted human flesh, reject all other food and wish only to devour men.
Plain English translation
Mouseia’s complete Plain English edition, made independently and directly from the complete French text (dedicatory epistle, preface, both parts and the notes).
As soon as people began to judge one another and formed an idea of the respect due to them, everyone claimed a right to it. No one could deny it to anyone without consequences. This gave rise to the first duties of politeness, even among natural peoples. From then on, every intentional wrong became an insult. Along with the harm done, the injured person saw contempt for himself, often harder to bear than the harm itself. Each punished the contempt shown him in proportion to his opinion of himself. Revenge thus became terrible, and people became bloodthirsty and cruel. This is exactly the stage most natural peoples known to us had reached. Several writers failed to distinguish the stages clearly enough or to notice how far these peoples already were from the first state of nature. They rushed to conclude that humans are cruel by nature and need government to make them gentle. Yet nothing is gentler than a person in the original condition. Nature placed him equally far from the stupidity of animals and the harmful knowledge of civilized people. Instinct and reason alike limited him to protecting himself from the dangers that threatened him. Natural pity kept him from doing harm to anyone, since nothing prompted him to do so, even after he himself had been harmed. For, according to the wise Locke's principle, there can be no injury where there is no property.
But we must note that the beginnings of society and the relations already established between people called for qualities different from those they possessed in their original makeup. Moral judgments were beginning to enter human actions. Before laws existed, each person alone judged and avenged the wrongs done to him. The goodness suited to the pure state of nature was no longer suited to the emerging society. Punishments had to grow more severe as opportunities to give offense grew more frequent; fear of revenge had to replace the restraint provided by laws. So although people had become less tolerant and natural pity had already weakened somewhat, this stage in the development of human abilities must have been the happiest and most lasting. It held a proper middle position between the inactivity of the original condition and the restless activity of our amour-propre. The more we reflect on it, the more we find that this condition was the least exposed to upheaval and the best for humanity (Note 16). People must have left it only through some disastrous accident that, for the common good, should never have happened. The example of natural peoples, nearly all of whom have been found at this stage, seems to confirm that humanity was meant to remain there forever. This condition is the true youth of the world. All later advances were apparently steps toward the perfection of the individual, but in reality steps toward the decline of the species.
As long as people were content with their rustic huts, as long as they did no more than sew their clothes of animal skins with thorns or fish bones, decorate themselves with feathers and seashells, paint their bodies in different colors, improve or adorn their bows and arrows, and carve a few fishing canoes or crude musical instruments with sharp stones—in short, as long as they did only work one person could do alone, and practiced only skills that did not require several people to work together—they lived as freely, healthily, kindly, and happily as their nature allowed. They continued to enjoy pleasant relations with one another while remaining independent. But the moment one person needed another's help, the moment people saw the advantage of one person's storing enough food for two, equality disappeared. Property appeared, work became necessary, and vast forests turned into pleasant fields that had to be watered with human sweat. Soon slavery and misery could be seen sprouting and growing alongside the crops.
Metalworking and agriculture were the two skills whose invention caused this great revolution. Poets say gold and silver civilized people and ruined humanity; philosophers say iron and wheat did. Both were unknown to the natural peoples of America, who have therefore remained as they were. Other peoples, too, seem to have remained uncivilized as long as they practiced one of these skills without the other. Perhaps one of the best reasons why Europe became, if not earlier, then more consistently and thoroughly organized than other parts of the world is that it has both the most iron and the most fertile land for wheat.
It is very difficult to guess how people came to know and use iron. We cannot believe they thought on their own to extract material from a mine and prepare it for melting before knowing what that would produce. On the other hand, the discovery can hardly be attributed to an accidental fire: mines form only in dry places without trees or plants. It is as if nature took precautions to hide this fatal secret from us. That leaves only the extraordinary event of a volcano spewing molten metal, which could have given observers the idea of copying nature's operation. Even then, we must suppose they had great courage and foresight to undertake such difficult work and envision benefits so far off. This hardly suits minds even more developed than theirs must have been.
As for agriculture, people understood its basic principle long before they practiced it. They were constantly gathering food from trees and plants, and could hardly have failed to notice fairly soon how nature makes plants grow. Yet they probably turned their skills to this use only much later. Perhaps trees, together with hunting and fishing, fed them without needing their care. Perhaps they did not know what wheat could be used for, lacked the tools to grow it, could not plan for future needs, or had no way to stop others from taking the fruits of their labor. Once they grew more skillful, we may suppose that they first used sharp stones and pointed sticks to grow a few vegetables or roots around their huts. This would have been long before they knew how to prepare wheat or had the tools needed to farm on a large scale. Besides, anyone taking up farming and sowing land must accept an initial loss in order to gain much more later. Such caution was far from the way of thinking of natural man, who, as I have said, had trouble even thinking in the morning about what he would need that evening.
The invention of other skills was therefore needed to make humanity take up agriculture. Once some people were needed to melt and forge iron, others were needed to feed them. As the number of workers increased, fewer hands provided food for everyone, though there were just as many mouths to eat it. Some people needed food in exchange for their iron. Others eventually learned how to use iron to produce more food. Thus plowing and agriculture arose on one side, and the skill of working metals and finding more uses for them on the other.
Cultivating land necessarily led to its division, and once property was recognized, the first rules of justice followed. To give each person what is his, each must be able to have something. People also began looking ahead. Everyone saw that he had some possessions to lose, so each had reason to fear retaliation for the wrongs he might do to another. This origin is all the more natural because we cannot understand how the idea of property could first have arisen except through labor. For what can a person put into things he did not make, to claim them as his own, besides his work? Only labor gives the farmer a right to the produce of land he has plowed. That right therefore extends to the land itself, at least until harvest. It extends in the same way year after year, creating a continuous possession that readily turns into property. Grotius says that when the ancients called Ceres a lawgiver and named a festival in her honor the Thesmophoria, they meant that the division of land gave rise to a new kind of right. That is the right of property, distinct from the right that follows from natural law.
Things could have remained equal at this stage if people's abilities had been equal, and if, for example, the use of iron and the consumption of food had always balanced exactly. But nothing maintained that balance, and it was soon broken. The stronger person did more work; the more skillful made better use of his work; the more inventive found ways to shorten the task. The farmer needed more iron, or the smith needed more wheat. Even when they worked equally hard, one gained a great deal while the other barely got by. Thus natural inequality gradually unfolds along with inequality produced by social arrangements. Differences between people are developed by differences in their circumstances. Their effects become more noticeable and more lasting, and increasingly shape the fortunes of individuals.
Once matters reached this point, it is easy to imagine the rest. I will not stop to describe the successive invention of other skills, the progress of languages, the testing and use of talents, unequal fortunes, the use or abuse of wealth, or all the details that follow from these and that anyone can easily supply. I will only take a brief look at humanity in this new order of things.
Now all our abilities have developed. Memory and imagination are at work, amour-propre has a stake in things, reason has become active, and the mind has almost reached the limit of its possible perfection. All natural qualities have come into play. Each person's rank and fortune now depend not only on how much property he has and his power to help or harm, but also on intelligence, beauty, strength, skill, merit, or talent. Since these qualities alone could win respect, people soon had to possess them or pretend to. For their own benefit, they had to show themselves as different from what they really were. Being and appearing became entirely different things. From this division came showy display, deceitful cunning, and all the vices that come with them. On the other hand, the person who had once been free and independent was now subject, so to speak, to all of nature through a host of new needs. Above all he was subject to other people, becoming in a sense their slave even when he became their master. If he was rich, he needed their services; if poor, he needed their help. Having a modest amount did not let him do without them. He had to keep trying to interest them in his fate, making them see a real or apparent benefit in working for his benefit. This made him dishonest and manipulative with some, domineering and harsh with others. He had to exploit everyone he needed whenever he could not make them fear him and had nothing to gain by genuinely helping them. Finally, consuming ambition and the urge to improve one's position relative to others, not so much out of real need as to put oneself above them, gave everyone a dark inclination to harm one another. Secret jealousy grew all the more dangerous because it often disguised itself as kindness to make its strike safer. In short, competition and rivalry on one side, opposed interests on the other, and always the hidden wish to profit at another's expense: all these evils were the first effects of property and the constant companions of emerging inequality.
Before people invented symbols that represented wealth, it could scarcely consist of anything besides land and livestock, the only real goods they could possess. But when landholdings had grown in number and size until they covered the whole ground and touched one another, some could expand only at the expense of others. Those left without land, whom weakness or idleness had kept from acquiring it in turn, became poor without having lost anything. Everything around them had changed, while they alone had not. They had to get their food from the rich, either by receiving it or by seizing it. Depending on people's different characters, domination and servitude, or violence and theft, began to arise from this situation. The rich, for their part, had scarcely tasted the pleasure of ruling before they looked down on every other pleasure. They used their former slaves to subdue new ones and thought only of conquering and enslaving their neighbors. They were like hungry wolves that, once they have tasted human flesh, reject every other food and want nothing but to devour people.