Jean-Jacques Rousseau · Complete work
Notes, 5
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Cela me paraît de la dernière évidence, et je ne saurais concevoir d’où nos philosophes peuvent faire naître toutes les passions qu’ils prêtent à l’homme naturel. Excepté le seul nécessaire physique, que la nature même demande, tous nos autres besoins ne sont tels que par l’habitude avant laquelle ils n’étaient point des besoins, ou par nos désirs, et l’on ne désire point ce qu’on n’est pas en état de connaître. D’où il suit que l’homme sauvage ne désirant que les choses qu’il connaît et ne connaissant que celles dont la possession est en son pouvoir ou facile à acquérir, rien ne doit être si tranquille que son âme et rien si borné que son esprit.
Note 12
Je trouve dans le Gouvernement civil de Locke une objection qui me paraît trop spécieuse pour qu’il me soit permis de la dissimuler. « La fin de la société entre le mâle et la femelle, dit ce philosophe, n’étant pas simplement de procréer, mais de continuer l’espèce, cette société doit durer, même après la procréation, du moins aussi longtemps qu’il est nécessaire pour la nourriture et la conservation des procréés, c’est-à-dire jusqu’à ce qu’ils soient capables de pourvoir eux-mêmes à leurs besoins. Cette règle que la sagesse infinie du Créateur a établie sur les œuvres de ses mains, nous voyons que les créatures inférieures à l’homme l’observent constamment et avec exactitude. Dans ces animaux qui vivent d’herbe, la société entre le mâle et la femelle ne dure pas plus longtemps que chaque acte de copulation, parce que les mamelles de la mère étant suffisantes pour nourrir les petits jusqu’à ce qu’ils soient capables de paître l’herbe, le mâle se contente d’engendrer et il ne se mêle plus après cela de la femelle ni des petits, à la subsistance desquels il ne peut rien contribuer. Mais au regard des bêtes de proie, la société dure plus longtemps, à cause que la mère ne pouvant pas bien pourvoir à sa subsistance propre et nourrir en même temps ses petits par sa seule proie, qui est une voie de se nourrir et plus laborieuse et plus dangereuse que n’est celle de se nourrir d’herbe, l’assistance du mâle est tout à fait nécessaire pour le maintien de leur commune famille, si l’on peut user de ce terme; laquelle jusqu’à ce qu’elle puisse aller chercher quelque proie ne saurait subsister que par les soins du mâle et de la femelle. On remarque le même dans tous les oiseaux, si l’on excepte quelques oiseaux domestiques qui se trouvent dans des lieux où la continuelle abondance de nourriture exempte le mâle du soin de nourrir les petits; on voit que pendant que les petits dans leur nid ont besoin d’aliments, le mâle et la femelle y en portent, jusqu’à ce que ces petits-là puissent voler et pourvoir à leur subsistance.
Et en cela, à mon avis, consiste la principale, si ce n’est la seule raison pourquoi le mâle et la femelle dans le genre humain sont obligés à une société plus longue que n’entretiennent les autres créatures. Cette raison est que la femme est capable de concevoir et est pour l’ordinaire derechef grosse et fait un nouvel enfant, longtemps avant que le précédent soit hors d’état de se passer du secours de ses parents et puisse lui-même pourvoir à ses besoins. Ainsi un père étant obligé de prendre soin de ceux qu’il a engendrés, et de prendre ce soin-là pendant longtemps, il est aussi dans l’obligation de continuer à vivre dans la société conjugale avec la même femme de qui il les a eus, et de demeurer dans cette société beaucoup plus longtemps que les autres créatures, dont les petits pouvant subsister d’eux-mêmes, avant que le temps d’une nouvelle procréation vienne, le lien du mâle et de la femelle se rompt de lui-même et l’un et l’autre se trouvent dans une pleine liberté, jusqu’à ce que cette saison qui a coutume de solliciter les animaux à se joindre ensemble les oblige de choisir de nouvelles compagnes. Et ici l’on ne saurait admirer assez la sagesse du Créateur, qui, ayant donné à l’homme des qualités propres pour pourvoir à l’avenir aussi bien qu’au présent, a voulu et a fait en sorte que la société de l’homme durât beaucoup plus longtemps que celle du mâle et de la femelle parmi les autres créatures; afin que par là l’industrie de l’homme et de la femme fût plus excitée, et que leurs intérêts fussent mieux unis, dans la vue de faire des provisions pour leurs enfants et de leur laisser du bien: rien ne pouvant être plus préjudiciable à des enfants qu’une conjonction incertaine et vague ou une dissolution facile et fréquente de la société conjugale. »
Le même amour de la vérité qui m’a fait exposer sincèrement cette objection m’excite à l’accompagner de quelques remarques, sinon pour la résoudre, au moins pour l’éclaircir.
a. J’observerai d’abord que les preuves morales n’ont pas une grande force en matière de physique et qu’elles servent plutôt à rendre raison des faits existants qu’à constater l’existence réelle de ces faits. Or tel est le genre de preuve que M. Locke emploie dans le passage que je viens de rapporter; car quoiqu’il puisse être avantageux à l’espèce humaine que l’union de l’homme et de la femme soit permanente, il ne s’ensuit pas que cela ait été ainsi établi par la nature, autrement il faudrait dire qu’elle a aussi institué la société civile, les arts, le commerce et tout ce qu’on prétend être utile aux hommes.
b. J’ignore où M. Locke a trouvé qu’entre les animaux de proie la société du mâle et de la femelle dure plus longtemps que parmi ceux qui vivent d’herbe et que l’un aide l’autre à nourrir les petits. Car on ne voit pas que le chien, le chat, l’ours, ni le loup reconnaissent leur femelle mieux que le cheval, le bélier, le taureau, le cerf ni tous les autres quadrupèdes ne reconnaissent la leur. Il semble au contraire que, si le secours du mâle était nécessaire à la femelle pour conserver ses petits, ce serait surtout dans les espèces qui ne vivent que d’herbe, parce qu’il faut fort longtemps à la mère pour paître, et que durant tout cet intervalle elle est forcée de négliger sa portée, au lieu que la proie d’une ourse ou d’une louve est dévorée en un instant et qu’elle a, sans souffrir la faim, plus de temps pour allaiter ses petits. Ce raisonnement est confirmé par une observation sur le nombre relatif de mamelles et de petits qui distingue les espèces carnassières des frugivores et dont j’ai parlé dans la note 2 de la page 167. Si cette observation est juste et générale, la femme n’ayant que deux mamelles et ne faisant guère qu’un enfant à la fois, voilà une forte raison de plus pour douter que l’espèce humaine soit naturellement carnassière, de sorte qu’il semble que pour tirer la conclusion de Locke, il faudrait retourner tout à fait son raisonnement. Il n’y a pas plus de solidité dans la même distinction appliquée aux oiseaux. Car qui pourra se persuader que l’union du mâle et de la femelle soit plus durable parmi les vautours et les corbeaux que parmi les tourterelles? Nous avons deux espèces d’oiseaux domestiques, la cane et le pigeon, qui nous fournissent des exemples directement contraires au système de cet auteur. Le pigeon, qui ne vit que de grain, reste uni à sa femelle et ils nourrissent leurs petits en commun. Le canard, dont la voracité est connue, ne reconnaît ni sa femelle ni ses petits et n’aide en rien à leur subsistance, et parmi les poules, espèce qui n’est guère moins carnassière, on ne voit pas que le coq se mette aucunement en peine de la couvée. Que si dans d’autres espèces le mâle partage avec la femelle le soin de nourrir les petits, c’est que les oiseaux qui d’abord ne peuvent voler et que la mère ne peut allaiter sont beaucoup moins en état de se passer de l’assistance du père que les quadrupèdes à qui suffit la mamelle de la mère, au moins durant quelque temps.
c. Il y a bien de l’incertitude sur le fait principal qui sert de base à tout le raisonnement de M. Locke. Car, pour savoir si, comme il le prétend, dans le pur état de nature la femme est pour l’ordinaire derechef grosse et fait un nouvel enfant longtemps avant que le précédent puisse pourvoir lui-même à ses besoins, il faudrait des expériences qu’assurément Locke n’avait pas faites et que personne n’est à portée de faire. La cohabitation continuelle du mari et de la femme est une occasion si prochaine de s’exposer à une nouvelle grossesse qu’il est bien difficile de croire que la rencontre fortuite ou la seule impulsion du tempérament produisît des effets aussi fréquents dans le pur état de nature que dans celui de la société conjugale; lenteur qui contribuerait peut-être à rendre les enfants plus robustes, et qui d’ailleurs pourrait être compensée par la faculté de concevoir, prolongée dans un plus grand âge chez les femmes qui en auraient moins abusé dans leur jeunesse. À l’égard des enfants, il y a bien des raisons de croire que leurs forces et leurs organes se développèrent plus tard parmi nous qu’ils ne faisaient dans l’état primitif dont je parle. La faiblesse originelle qu’ils tirent de la constitution des parents, les soins qu’on prend d’envelopper et gêner tous leurs membres, la mollesse dans laquelle ils sont élevés, peut-être l’usage d’un autre lait que celui de leur mère, tout contrarie et retarde en eux les premiers progrès de la nature. L’application qu’on les oblige de donner à mille choses sur lesquelles on fixe continuellement leur attention, tandis qu’on ne donne aucun exercice à leurs forces corporelles, peut encore faire une diversion considérable à leur accroissement; de sorte que, si au lieu de surcharger et fatiguer d’abord leurs esprits de mille manières, on laissait exercer leurs corps aux mouvements continuels que la nature semble leur demander, il est à croire qu’ils seraient beaucoup plus tôt en état de marcher, d’agir et de pourvoir eux-mêmes à leurs besoins.
d. Enfin M. Locke prouve tout au plus qu’il pourrait bien y avoir dans l’homme un motif de demeurer attaché à la femme lorsqu’elle a un enfant; mais il ne prouve nullement qu’il a dû s’y attacher avant l’accouchement et pendant les neuf mois de la grossesse. Si telle femme est indifférente à l’homme pendant ces neuf mois, si même elle lui devient inconnue, pourquoi la secourra-t-il après l’accouchement? pourquoi lui aidera-t-il à élever un enfant qu’il ne sait pas seulement lui appartenir, et dont il n’a résolu ni prévu la naissance? M. Locke suppose évidemment ce qui est en question, car il ne s’agit pas de savoir pourquoi l’homme demeurera attaché à la femme après l’accouchement, mais pourquoi il s’attachera à elle après la conception. L’appétit satisfait, l’homme n’a plus besoin de telle femme, ni la femme de tel homme. Celui-ci n’a pas le moindre souci ni peut-être la moindre idée des suites de son action. L’un s’en va d’un côté, l’autre d’un autre, et il n’y a pas d’apparence qu’au bout de neuf mois ils aient la mémoire de s’être connus, car cette espèce de mémoire par laquelle un individu donne la préférence à un individu pour l’acte de la génération exige, comme je le prouve dans le texte, plus de progrès ou de corruption dans l’entendement humain qu’on ne peut lui en supposer dans l’état d’animalité dont il s’agit ici. Une autre femme peut donc contenter les nouveaux désirs de l’homme aussi commodément que celle qu’il a déjà connue, et un autre homme contenter de même la femme, supposé qu’elle soit pressée du même appétit pendant l’état de grossesse, de quoi l’on peut raisonnablement douter. Que si dans l’état de nature la femme ne ressent plus la passion de l’amour après la conception de l’enfant, l’obstacle à la société avec l’homme en devient encore beaucoup plus grand, puisqu’alors elle n’a plus besoin ni de l’homme qui l’a fécondée ni d’aucun d’autre. Il n’y a donc dans l’homme aucune raison de rechercher la même femme, ni dans la femme aucune raison de rechercher le même homme. Le raisonnement de Locke tombe donc en ruine et toute la dialectique de ce philosophe ne l’a pas garanti de la faute que Hobbes et d’autres ont commise. Ils avaient à expliquer un fait de l’état de nature, c’est-à-dire d’un état où les hommes vivaient isolés, et où tel homme n’avait aucun motif de demeurer à côté de tel homme, ni peut-être les hommes de demeurer à côté les uns des autres, ce qui est bien pis; et ils n’ont pas songé à se transporter au-delà des siècles de société, c’est-à-dire de ces temps où les hommes ont toujours une raison de demeurer près les uns des autres, et où tel homme a souvent raison de demeurer à côté de tel homme ou de telle femme.
Note 13
Je me garderai bien de m’embarquer dans les réflexions philosophiques qu’il y aurait à faire sur les avantages et les inconvénients de cette institution des langues; ce n’est pas à moi qu’on permet d’attaquer les erreurs vulgaires, et le peuple lettré respecte trop ses préjugés pour supporter patiemment mes prétendus paradoxes. Laissons donc parler les gens à qui l’on n’a point fait un crime d’oser prendre quelquefois le parti de la raison contre l’avis de la multitude. Nec quidquam felicitati humani generis decederet, pulsâ tot linguarum peste et confusione, unam artem callerent mortales, et signis, motibus, gestibusque licitum foret quidvis explicare. Nunc vero ita comparatum est, ut animalium quoe vulgó bruta creduntur, melior longè quàm nostra hâc in parte videatur conditio, ut pote quoe promptiùs et forsan feliciùs, sensus et cogitationes suas sine interprete significent, quàm ulli queant mortales, proesertim si peregrino utantur sermone. Is. Vossius, de Poemat. Cant. et Viribus Rythmi, p.66.
Note 14
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.
This seems to me utterly evident, and I cannot conceive where our philosophers find all the passions they attribute to natural man. Apart from physical necessities alone, which nature herself demands, all our other needs become needs only through habit, before which they were not needs, or through our desires, and we do not desire what we cannot know. It follows that, since wild man desires only what he knows and knows only what lies within his power to possess or is easily acquired, nothing should be more tranquil than his soul or more limited than his mind.
Note 12
I find in Locke's Civil Government an objection that seems too plausible for me to be permitted to conceal it. “The end of the association between male and female,” says that philosopher, “being not simply to procreate but to perpetuate the species, this association must last even after procreation, at least as long as is necessary for the nourishment and preservation of their offspring—that is, until the young can provide for their own needs. We see that creatures inferior to man constantly and exactly observe this rule, established by the infinite wisdom of the Creator over the works of his hands. Among animals that live on grass, the association between male and female lasts no longer than each act of copulation, because the mother's milk suffices to nourish the young until they can graze; the male contents himself with begetting them and thereafter concerns himself with neither the female nor the young, to whose sustenance he can contribute nothing. But among beasts of prey the association lasts longer, because the mother cannot adequately provide for her own subsistence and at the same time feed her young by her hunting alone—a more laborious and dangerous means of feeding herself than grazing. The male's help is altogether necessary to support their common family, if that term may be used, which cannot subsist until the young are able to seek prey except through the care of male and female alike. We observe the same in all birds, with the exception of certain domestic birds that live where a constant abundance of food relieves the male of the care of feeding the young; while the young in their nest need food, we see male and female bring it to them until they can fly and provide for themselves.
“And in this, to my mind, lies the principal, if not the sole, reason why male and female in the human species are bound to a longer association than other creatures maintain. The reason is that a woman can conceive and is ordinarily pregnant again and bears another child long before the preceding one can do without its parents' help and provide for its own needs. Thus a father, obliged to care for those he has begotten and to care for them over a long period, is obliged also to continue living in conjugal association with the same woman by whom he had them, and to remain in that association much longer than other creatures, whose young can subsist on their own before the season for another procreation arrives. The bond between male and female then dissolves of itself and each is wholly free until the season that ordinarily prompts animals to come together obliges them to choose new mates. Here we cannot sufficiently admire the Creator's wisdom: having endowed man with qualities suited to providing for the future as well as the present, he willed and arranged for the association of man and woman to last much longer than that of male and female among other creatures, so that the industry of man and woman might be more strongly aroused and their interests more closely united in providing for their children and leaving them property; nothing could be more harmful to children than an uncertain and wandering union, or the easy and frequent dissolution of conjugal association.”
The same love of truth that led me to set out this objection candidly prompts me to add a few observations, if not to resolve it, at least to clarify it.
a. I shall observe first that moral proofs carry little force in physical matters, and serve rather to explain existing facts than to establish that those facts really exist. Yet this is the kind of proof M. Locke employs in the passage I have just quoted; for although it might benefit the human species for the union of man and woman to be permanent, it does not follow that nature established it so. Otherwise one would have to say that nature also instituted civil society, the arts, commerce, and everything else alleged to benefit mankind.
b. I do not know where M. Locke discovered that among beasts of prey the association between male and female lasts longer than among grass-eaters, or that one helps the other feed the young. For we do not see the dog, the cat, the bear, or the wolf recognize its female any better than the horse, the ram, the bull, the stag, or any other quadruped recognizes its own. On the contrary, it seems that if the male's help were necessary for the female to preserve her young, this would be most true of species living solely on grass, since it takes the mother a long time to graze, during which she must neglect her litter; whereas a she-bear's or she-wolf's prey is devoured in an instant, leaving her more time to suckle her young without going hungry. This reasoning is confirmed by an observation on the relative numbers of teats and offspring that distinguishes carnivorous from fruit-eating species, of which I spoke in note 2 on page 167. If that observation is sound and general, the fact that a woman has only two breasts and usually bears only one child at a time gives us still stronger reason to doubt that the human species is naturally carnivorous; so it seems that to draw Locke's conclusion, we would have to reverse his reasoning altogether. The same distinction is no sounder when applied to birds. For who could persuade himself that the union of male and female is more lasting among vultures and ravens than among turtledoves? We have two species of domestic birds, the duck and the pigeon, that provide examples directly contrary to this author's system. The pigeon, which lives on grain alone, remains joined to its female and they feed their young together. The duck, whose voracity is well known, recognizes neither its female nor its young and does nothing to sustain them; and among chickens, a species scarcely less carnivorous, we do not see the rooster troubling himself at all about the brood. If in other species the male shares the care of feeding the young with the female, it is because birds, which at first cannot fly and cannot be suckled by their mother, are far less capable of doing without the father's help than quadrupeds, for whom the mother's milk suffices, at least for a time.
c. There is great uncertainty about the principal fact on which M. Locke's whole argument rests. To know whether, as he maintains, in the pure state of nature a woman is ordinarily pregnant again and bears a new child long before the preceding one can provide for itself, experiments would be needed that Locke assuredly never performed and that no one is in a position to perform. The continual cohabitation of husband and wife presents such an immediate opportunity for another pregnancy that it is very hard to believe that chance encounters or the prompting of temperament alone would produce effects as frequent in the pure state of nature as in conjugal society. Such a slower pace might help make children more robust; it might also be compensated for by a capacity to conceive extending to a later age among women who had made less use of it in their youth. As for children, there are many reasons to believe that their strength and their organs develop later among us than they did in the original condition of which I speak. Their inherited weakness, derived from their parents' constitution; the care taken to swaddle and constrain all their limbs; the softness in which they are raised; perhaps the use of milk other than their mother's—all these impede and delay nature's first advances in them. The attention they are forced to devote to a thousand things on which their minds are constantly fixed, while their bodily strength is given no exercise, may also considerably divert their growth. Thus if, instead of immediately overburdening and exhausting their minds in a thousand ways, we allowed their bodies the constant movement nature seems to demand, we may believe that they would be able to walk, act, and provide for their own needs much sooner.
d. Finally, M. Locke proves at most that a man might have a motive to remain attached to a woman when she has a child; he does not prove in the least that he must have become attached to her before childbirth and during the nine months of pregnancy. If a particular woman is a matter of indifference to a man during those nine months, if she even becomes a stranger to him, why should he help her after childbirth? Why should he help her raise a child he does not even know to be his, whose birth he neither intended nor foresaw? M. Locke plainly assumes the very point at issue: the question is not why a man remains attached to a woman after childbirth, but why he becomes attached to her after conception. His appetite satisfied, the man no longer needs that particular woman, nor the woman that particular man. He has not the least concern, nor perhaps the least notion, of the consequences of his act. One goes one way, the other another; there is little likelihood that after nine months they would remember having known each other, for the sort of memory whereby an individual prefers one individual for the act of generation requires, as I demonstrate in the text, greater progress or corruption of the human understanding than can be supposed in the animal condition under discussion. Another woman can therefore satisfy the man's renewed desires just as readily as one he has already known, and another man can likewise satisfy the woman, assuming she feels the same appetite during pregnancy, which may reasonably be doubted. If in the state of nature a woman no longer feels the passion of love after conceiving a child, the obstacle to association with the man grows greater still, since then she needs neither the man who impregnated her nor any other. There is consequently no reason for the man to seek the same woman, or the woman the same man. Locke's reasoning thus collapses, and all that philosopher's dialectic has not saved him from the mistake made by Hobbes and others. They were meant to explain a fact of the state of nature, that is, a condition in which human beings lived apart and in which one man had no reason to remain beside another, nor perhaps men to remain near one another at all, which is worse; yet they did not think to transport themselves beyond the centuries of society, the times in which men always have a reason to stay near one another, and one man often has reason to stay beside a particular man or woman.
Note 13
I shall take great care not to embark on the philosophical reflections that might be made upon the advantages and disadvantages of the institution of languages; I am not the one permitted to attack common errors, and the learned public holds its prejudices too dear to endure my supposed paradoxes patiently. Let us therefore give the floor to people who have not been treated as criminals for sometimes daring to side with reason against the opinion of the multitude. Nor would anything be lost to the happiness of the human race if, with the plague and confusion of so many languages banished, mortals mastered a single art, and it were possible to explain anything by signs, motions, and gestures. As things now stand, however, the condition of the animals commonly considered brute seems far better in this respect than ours: they express their feelings and thoughts without an interpreter more readily, and perhaps more successfully, than any mortals can, especially when the latter speak a foreign language. Is. Vossius, On the Poetry of Song and the Powers of Rhythm, p.66.
Note 14
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).
This seems completely obvious to me. I cannot understand where our philosophers could find all the passions they attribute to natural man. Apart from physical necessities, which nature itself demands, all our other needs become needs through habit, before which they were not needs, or through our desires; and we do not desire what we cannot know. The wild man therefore wants only what he knows and knows only what he can possess or easily get. It follows that nothing should be more peaceful than his mind or more limited than his understanding.
Note 12
In Locke's Civil Government I find an objection that sounds too plausible for me to hide it. “The purpose of the union between male and female,” this philosopher says, “is not just to produce offspring but to carry on the species. So this union must last after reproduction, at least as long as the offspring need feeding and protection, that is, until they can meet their own needs. We see that creatures below humans consistently and exactly follow this rule established over the works of the Creator's hands by his infinite wisdom. Among animals that live on grass, the union between male and female lasts no longer than each act of mating. The mother's milk is enough to feed the young until they can graze, so the male does no more than beget them. After that he has nothing to do with the female or the young and cannot contribute to their support. But among beasts of prey the union lasts longer. The mother cannot easily feed herself and her young at the same time from her own hunting, a harder and more dangerous way of getting food than grazing. The male's help is therefore absolutely necessary to support their family, if we may use the word. Until the young can go hunting, the family cannot survive without the care of both male and female. We observe the same thing in all birds, except for some domesticated birds living where food is always abundant, freeing the male from the work of feeding the young. As long as the young need food in the nest, both male and female bring it to them, until they can fly and feed themselves.
“To my mind, this is the main reason, if not the only one, why human males and females have to remain together longer than other creatures do. A woman can conceive and usually becomes pregnant again and bears another child long before the previous one can get along without its parents' help and meet its own needs. A father must therefore care for the children he has begotten, and care for them for a long time. He must also continue to live in a marital union with the same woman who bore them, and stay in it much longer than other creatures do. Among those creatures the young can live on their own before another breeding season comes. The tie between male and female then breaks on its own, and both are completely free until the season that usually draws animals together makes them choose new mates. Here we cannot sufficiently admire the Creator's wisdom. He gave humans qualities suited to providing for the future as well as the present, and wanted and arranged for the union of man and woman to last much longer than that of male and female among other creatures. This would encourage the work of both man and woman and unite their interests more closely as they made provisions for their children and left them property. Nothing could be more harmful to children than a casual, unstable bond or the easy and frequent ending of a marital union.”
The same love of truth that made me set out this objection honestly prompts me to add a few remarks. If they cannot answer it, they can at least make it clearer.
a. I will first note that moral arguments have little force in questions of physical fact. They are better at explaining existing facts than proving that those facts actually exist. Yet that is the kind of argument Mr. Locke uses in the passage I have just quoted. A lasting union between man and woman might benefit the human species. It does not follow that nature established it that way. Otherwise we would have to say nature also established civil society, the arts, commerce, and everything else supposedly useful to humans.
b. I do not know where Mr. Locke found that the union of male and female lasts longer among beasts of prey than among animals that eat grass, or that one helps the other feed the young. Dogs, cats, bears, and wolves do not seem to recognize their mates any better than horses, rams, bulls, deer, and other four-legged animals recognize theirs. Indeed, if a mother needed the male's help to keep her young alive, this would seem most true of species that eat nothing but grass. The mother has to spend a long time grazing, and throughout that time must neglect her offspring. A bear or a she-wolf, by contrast, eats her prey in a moment. Without going hungry, she has more time to nurse her young. This reasoning is supported by an observation I made in note 2 on page 167 about the relative numbers of teats and young in meat-eating and plant-eating species. If the observation holds true generally, the fact that a woman has only two breasts and usually bears only one child at a time gives us another strong reason to doubt that the human species naturally eats meat. To reach Locke's conclusion, then, we would apparently have to reverse his reasoning entirely. The same distinction is no more convincing when applied to birds. Who could believe that male and female vultures and crows remain together longer than turtledoves do? Two kinds of domesticated birds, ducks and pigeons, give us examples directly opposed to his system. The pigeon eats only grain, stays with its mate, and shares the task of feeding their young. The duck, whose greed for food is well known, recognizes neither its mate nor its young and does nothing to help feed them. And among chickens, a species hardly less meat-eating, the rooster shows no concern at all for the brood. If the male does help the female feed the young in other bird species, that is because young birds cannot fly at first and cannot nurse from their mother. They are much less able to do without their father's help than four-legged animals, for whom the mother's milk is enough, at least for a while.
c. There is considerable uncertainty about the main fact underlying Mr. Locke's whole argument. He claims that in the pure state of nature a woman usually becomes pregnant again and bears another child long before the previous one can provide for its own needs. To know whether this is so would require experiments that Locke certainly did not perform and that no one is in a position to perform. A husband and wife living together continuously have so many chances to bring about another pregnancy that it is very hard to believe a chance encounter or a simple physical impulse would produce pregnancies as often in the pure state of nature as in marital society. Such a slower pace might help make children stronger. It might also be offset by women's continuing to be able to conceive until a later age if they had made less use of that ability in their youth. As for children, there are many reasons to think that their strength and bodily capacities develop later among us than they did in the original condition I am discussing. They inherit weakness from the constitution of their parents. We wrap and restrict all their limbs, raise them in softness, and perhaps feed them milk other than their mother's. All this works against and slows the earliest steps of their natural development. We also force them to apply themselves to a thousand things that constantly occupy their attention, while giving their bodies no exercise. This too may seriously hold back their growth. So if, instead of overloading and exhausting their minds in a thousand ways from the start, we let their bodies engage in the constant movement nature seems to demand, it seems likely that they would learn much sooner to walk, act, and provide for their own needs.
d. Finally, Mr. Locke shows at most that a man might have a reason to stay with a woman when she has a child. He does not show at all why the man must have stayed with her before the birth and during the nine months of pregnancy. If he is indifferent to a particular woman throughout those nine months, or if he no longer even knows her, why would he help her after the birth? Why would he help her raise a child that he does not even know is his, and whose birth he neither planned nor expected? Mr. Locke clearly assumes the point at issue. The question is not why a man would stay with a woman after childbirth, but why he would stay with her after conception. Once his appetite is satisfied, a man no longer needs that particular woman, nor does she need that particular man. He has not the least concern about, and perhaps not the least idea of, what will follow from his act. One goes one way and the other goes another. It is unlikely that nine months later they even remember meeting. For one individual to remember another in the way needed to prefer that person as a sexual partner requires, as I show in the text, more development or corruption of human understanding than we can suppose in the animal condition under discussion. Another woman can therefore satisfy the man's new desires just as easily as the woman he has already met. Another man can satisfy the woman as well, assuming she feels the same appetite during pregnancy, which there is good reason to doubt. If in the state of nature a woman no longer feels sexual desire after conceiving a child, an even greater obstacle stands in the way of her union with a man. She then needs neither the man who made her pregnant nor any other. So the man has no reason to seek out the same woman, and the woman has no reason to seek out the same man. Locke's argument therefore collapses. For all his skill in reasoning, this philosopher has made the same mistake as Hobbes and others. They had to explain a fact about the state of nature, that is, a condition in which people lived apart. In it, one man had no reason to stay near any particular man, and people perhaps had no reason even to stay near one another, which is more serious. But these philosophers failed to look past centuries of life in society, times when people always have a reason to stay near one another and one man often has a reason to stay near a particular man or woman.
Note 13
I will certainly not venture into the philosophical reflections one could make about the advantages and disadvantages of this institution of languages. I am not the one who is allowed to challenge common errors, and educated people respect their prejudices too much to put up patiently with my supposed paradoxes. So let those speak who have not been treated as criminals for sometimes daring to side with reason against the crowd. Nothing would be lost from the happiness of the human race if the scourge and confusion of so many languages were driven out, if mortals knew a single art, and if they were free to express anything with signs, movements, and gestures. But as things stand, the animals commonly regarded as brutes seem far better off than we are in this respect, since they communicate their feelings and thoughts without an interpreter more readily, and perhaps more successfully, than any humans can, especially when people speak a foreign language. Is. Vossius, On the Nature and Power of Poetic Rhythm, p.66.
Note 14