Jean-Jacques Rousseau · Complete work
Part One, 1
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DISCOURS
SUR
L’ORIGINE ET LES FONDEMENTS
DE L’INÉGALITÉ
PARMI LES HOMMES.
C’est de l’homme que j’ai à parler; et la question que j’examine m’apprend que je vais parler à des hommes; car on n’en propose point de semblables quand on craint d’honorer la vérité. Je défendrai donc avec confiance la cause de l’humanité devant les sages qui m’y invitent, et je ne serai pas mécontent de moi-même si je me rends digne de mon sujet et de mes juges.
Je conçois dans l’espèce humaine deux sortes d’inégalités: l’une, que j’appelle naturelle ou physique, parce qu’elle est établie par la nature, et qui consiste dans la différence des âges, de la santé, des forces du corps et des qualités de l’esprit ou de l’ame; l’autre qu’on peut appeler inégalité morale ou politique parce qu’elle dépend d’une sorte de convention, et qu’elle est établie ou du moins autorisée par le consentement des hommes. Celle-ci consiste dans les différents privilèges dont quelques-uns jouissent au préjudice des autres, comme d’être plus riches, plus honorés, plus puissants qu’eux, ou même de s’en faire obéir.
On ne peut pas demander quelle est la source de l’inégalité naturelle, parce que la réponse se trouverait énoncée dans la simple définition du mot. On peut encore moins chercher s’il n’y aurait point quelque liaison essentielle entre les deux inégalités; car ce serait demander en d’autres termes si ceux qui commandent valent nécessairement mieux que ceux qui obéissent, et si la force du corps ou de l’esprit, la sagesse ou la vertu, se trouvent toujours dans les mêmes individus en proportion de la puissance ou de la richesse: question bonne peut-être à agiter entre des esclaves entendus de leurs maîtres, mais qui ne convient pas à des hommes raisonnables et libres, qui cherchent la vérité.
De quoi s’agit-il donc précisément dans ce Discours? De marquer dans le progrès des choses le moment où, le droit succédant à la violence, la nature fut soumise à la loi; d’expliquer par quel enchaînement de prodiges le fort put se résoudre à servir le faible, et le peuple à acheter un repos en idée au prix d’une félicité réelle.
Les philosophes qui ont examiné les fondements de la société ont tous senti la nécessité de remonter jusqu’à l’état de nature, mais aucun d’eux n’y est arrivé. Les uns n’ont point balancé à supposer à l’homme dans cet état la notion du juste et de l’injuste, sans se soucier de montrer qu’il dût avoir cette notion, ni même qu’elle lui fût utile. D’autres ont parlé du droit naturel que chacun a de conserver ce qui lui appartient, sans expliquer ce qu’ils entendaient par appartenir. D’autres, donnant d’abord au plus fort l’autorité sur le plus faible, ont aussitôt fait naître le gouvernement, sans songer au temps qui dut s’écouler avant que le sens des mots d’autorité et de gouvernement pût exister parmi les hommes. Enfin tous, parlant sans cesse de besoin, d’avidité, d’oppression, de désirs, et d’orgueil, ont transporté à l’état de nature des idées qu’ils avaient prises dans la société: ils parlaient de l’homme sauvage, et ils peignaient l’homme civil. Il n’est pas même venu dans l’esprit de la plupart des nôtres de douter que l’état de nature eût existé, tandis qu’il est évident, par la lecture des livres sacrés, que le premier homme, ayant reçu immédiatement de Dieu des lumières et des préceptes, n’était point lui-même dans cet état, et qu’en ajoutant aux écrits de Moïse la foi que leur doit tout philosophe chrétien, il faut nier que, même avant le déluge, les hommes se soient jamais trouvés dans le pur état de nature, à moins qu’ils n’y soient retombés par quelque événement extraordinaire: paradoxe fort embarrassant à défendre et tout-à-fait impossible à prouver.
Commençons donc par écarter tous les faits, car ils ne touchent point à la question. Il ne faut pas prendre les recherches dans lesquelles on peut entrer sur ce sujet pour des vérités historiques, mais seulement pour des raisonnements hypothétiques et conditionnels, plus propres à éclaircir la nature des choses qu’à en montrer la véritable origine, et semblables à ceux que font tous les jours nos physiciens sur la formation du monde. La religion nous ordonne de croire que Dieu lui-même ayant tiré les hommes de l’état de nature immédiatement après la création, ils sont inégaux parce qu’il a voulu qu’ils le fussent; mais elle ne nous défend pas de former des conjectures tirées de la seule nature de l’homme et des êtres qui l’environnent, sur ce qu’aurait pu devenir le genre humain s’il fût resté abandonné à lui-même. Voilà ce qu’on me demande, et ce que je me propose d’examiner dans ce Discours. Mon sujet intéressant l’homme en général, je tâcherai de prendre un langage qui convienne à toutes les nations; ou plutôt, oubliant les temps et les lieux pour ne songer qu’aux hommes à qui je parle, je me supposerai dans le lycée d’Athènes, répétant les leçons de mes maîtres, ayant les Platon et les Xénocrate pour juges, et le genre humain pour auditeur.
Ô homme, de quelque contrée que tu sois, quelles que soient tes opinions, écoute; voici ton histoire, telle que j’ai cru la lire, non dans les livres de tes semblables, qui sont menteurs, mais dans la nature, qui ne ment jamais. Tout ce qui sera d’elle sera vrai; Il n’y aura de faux que ce que j’y aurai mêlé du mien sans le vouloir. Les temps dont je vais parler sont bien éloignés: combien tu as changé de ce que tu étais! C’est, pour ainsi dire, la vie de ton espèce que je te vais décrire d’après les qualités que tu as reçues, que ton éducation et tes habitudes ont pu dépraver, mais qu’elles n’ont pu détruire. Il y a, je le sens, un âge auquel l’homme individuel voudrait s’arrêter: tu chercheras l’âge auquel tu désirerais que ton espèce se fût arrêtée. Mécontent de ton état présent par des raisons qui annoncent à ta postérité malheureuse de plus grands mécontentements encore, peut-être voudrais-tu pouvoir rétrograder; et ce sentiment doit faire l’éloge de tes premiers aïeux, la critique de tes contemporains, et l’effroi de ceux qui auront le malheur de vivre après toi.
PREMIÈRE PARTIE.
Quelque important qu’il soit, pour bien juger de l’état naturel de l’homme, de le considérer dès son origine et de l’examiner, pour ainsi dire, dans le premier embryon de l’espèce, je ne suivrai point son organisation à travers ses développements successifs: je ne m’arrêterai pas à rechercher dans le système animal ce qu’il put être au commencement pour devenir enfin ce qu’il est. Je n’examinerai pas si, comme le pense Aristote, ses ongles allongés ne furent point d’abord des griffes crochues; s’il n’était point velu comme un ours; et si, marchant à quatre pieds (Note 3), ses regards dirigés vers la terre, et bornés à un horizon de quelques pas, ne marquaient point à la fois le caractère et les limites de ses idées. Je ne pourrais former sur ce sujet que des conjectures vagues et presque imaginaires. L’anatomie comparée a fait encore trop peu de progrès, les observations des naturalistes sont encore trop incertaines, pour qu’on puisse établir sur de pareils fondements la base d’un raisonnement solide: ainsi, sans avoir recours aux connaissances surnaturelles que nous avons sur ce point, et sans avoir égard aux changements qui ont dû survenir dans la conformation, tant intérieure qu’extérieure, de l’homme, à mesure qu’il appliquait ses membres à de nouveaux usages et qu’il se nourrissait de nouveaux aliments, je le supposerai conformé de tout temps comme je le vois aujourd’hui, marchant à deux pieds, se servant de ses mains comme nous faisons des nôtres, portant ses regards sur toute la nature, et mesurant des yeux la vaste étendue du ciel. En dépouillant cet être ainsi constitué de tous les dons surnaturels qu’il a pu recevoir, et de toutes les facultés artificielles qu’il n’a pu acquérir que par de longs progrès; en le considérant en un mot tel qu’il a dû sortir des mains de la nature, je vois un animal moins fort que les uns, moins agile que les autres, mais, à tout prendre, organisé le plus avantageusement de tous: je le vois se rassasiant sous un chêne, se désaltérant au premier ruisseau, trouvant son lit au pied du même arbre qui lui a fourni son repas; et voilà ses besoins satisfaits.
La terre, abandonnée à sa fertilité naturelle (Note 4), et couverte de forêts immenses que la cognée ne mutila jamais, offre à chaque pas des magasins et des retraites aux animaux de toute espèce. Les hommes, dispersés parmi eux, observent, imitent leur industrie, et s’élèvent ainsi jusqu’à l’instinct des bêtes; avec cet avantage que chaque espèce n’a que le sien propre, et que l’homme, n’en ayant peut-être aucun qui lui appartienne, se les approprie tous, se nourrit également de la plupart des aliments divers (Note 5) que les autres animaux se partagent, et trouve par conséquent sa subsistance plus aisément que ne peut faire aucun d’eux.
Accoutumés dès l’enfance aux intempéries de l’air et à la rigueur des saisons, exercés à la fatigue, et forcés de défendre nus et sans armes leur vie et leur proie contre les autres bêtes féroces, ou de leur échapper à la course, les hommes se forment un tempérament robuste et presque inaltérable; les enfants, apportant au monde l’excellente constitution de leurs pères et la fortifiant par les mêmes exercices qui l’ont produite, acquièrent ainsi toute la vigueur dont l’espèce humaine est capable. La nature en use précisément avec eux comme la loi de Sparte avec les enfants des citoyens; elle rend forts et robustes ceux qui sont bien constitués, et fait périr tous les autres: différente en cela de nos sociétés, où l’état, en rendant les enfants onéreux aux pères, les tue indistinctement avant leur naissance.
Le corps de l’homme sauvage étant le seul instrument qu’il connaisse, il l’emploie à divers usages, dont, par le défaut d’exercice, les nôtres sont incapables, et c’est notre industrie qui nous ôte la force et l’agilité que la nécessité l’oblige d’acquérir. S’il avait eu une hache, son poignet romprait-il de si fortes branches? S’il avait eu une fronde, lancerait-il de la main une pierre avec tant de roideur? s’il avait eu une échelle, grimperait-il si légèrement sur un arbre? s’il avait eu un cheval, serait-il si vite à la course? Laissez à l’homme civilisé le temps de rassembler toutes ses machines autour de lui, on ne peut douter qu’il ne surmonte facilement l’homme sauvage: mais si vous voulez voir un combat plus inégal encore, mettez-les nus et désarmés vis-à-vis l’un de l’autre, et vous reconnaîtrez bientôt quel est l’avantage d’avoir sans cesse toutes ses forces à sa disposition, d’être toujours prêt à tout événement, et de se porter, pour ainsi dire, toujours tout entier avec soi (Note 6).
Hobbes prétend que l’homme est naturellement intrépide, et ne cherche qu’à attaquer et combattre. Un philosophe illustre pense, au contraire, et Cumberland et Puffendorf l’assurent aussi, que rien n’est si timide que l’homme dans l’état de nature, et qu’il est toujours tremblant et prêt à fuir au moindre bruit qui le frappe, au moindre mouvement qu’il aperçoit. Cela peut être ainsi pour les objets qu’il ne connaît pas; et je ne doute point qu’il ne soit effrayé par tous les nouveaux spectacles qui s’offrent à lui toutes les fois qu’il ne peut distinguer le bien et le mal physiques qu’il en doit attendre, ni comparer ses forces avec les dangers qu’il a à courir; circonstances rares dans l’état de nature, où toutes choses marchent d’une manière si uniforme, et où la face de la terre n’est point sujette à ces changements brusques et continuels qu’y causent les passions et l’inconstance des peuples réunis. Mais l’homme sauvage, vivant dispersé parmi les animaux, et se trouvant de bonne heure dans le cas de se mesurer avec eux, il en fait bientôt la comparaison; et, sentant qu’il les surpasse plus en adresse qu’ils ne le surpassent en force, il apprend à ne les plus craindre. Mettez un ours ou un loup aux prises avec un sauvage robuste, agile, courageux, comme ils sont tous, armé de pierres et d’un bon bâton, et vous verrez que le péril sera tout au moins réciproque, et qu’après plusieurs expériences pareilles, les bêtes féroces, qui n’aiment point à s’attaquer l’une à l’autre, s’attaqueront peu volontiers à l’homme, qu’elles auront trouvé tout aussi féroce qu’elles. À l’égard des animaux qui ont réellement plus de force qu’il n’a d’adresse, il est vis-à-vis d’eux dans le cas des autres espèces plus faibles, qui ne laissent pas de subsister; avec cet avantage pour l’homme que, non moins dispos qu’eux à la course, et trouvant sur les arbres un refuge presque assuré, il a partout le prendre et le laisser dans la rencontre, et le choix de la fuite ou du combat. Ajoutons qu’il ne paraît pas qu’aucun animal fasse naturellement la guerre à l’homme hors le cas de sa propre défense ou d’une extrême faim, ni témoigne contre lui de ces violentes antipathies qui semblent annoncer qu’une espèce est destinée par la nature à servir de pâture à l’autre.
Voilà sans doute les raisons pourquoi les nègres et les sauvages se mettent si peu en peine des bêtes féroces qu'ils peuvent rencontrer dans les bois. Les Caraïbes de Venezuela vivent entre autres à cet égard dans la plus profonde sécurité et sans le moindre inconvénient. Quoiqu’ils soient presque nus, dit François Corréal, ils ne laissent pas de s’exposer hardiment dans les bois, armés seulement de la flèche et de l’arc; mais on n’a jamais ouï dire qu’aucun d’eux ait été dévoré des bêtes.
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.
DISCOURSE
ON
THE ORIGIN AND FOUNDATIONS
OF INEQUALITY
AMONG MEN.
It is of man that I must speak; and the question I examine tells me that I shall be speaking to men, for no one puts forward such questions when afraid to honor the truth. I will therefore confidently defend the cause of humanity before the wise men who invite me to do so, and I shall not be displeased with myself if I prove worthy of my subject and my judges.
I conceive of two kinds of inequality in the human species: one I call natural or physical, because nature establishes it, and it consists in differences of age, health, bodily strength, and qualities of mind or soul; the other may be called moral or political inequality, because it depends on a kind of convention and is established, or at least authorized, by the consent of men. The latter consists in the various privileges some enjoy to the detriment of others, such as being richer, more honored, more powerful than they are, or even making themselves obeyed by them.
One cannot ask what is the source of natural inequality, because the answer is already stated in the simple definition of the word. Still less can one investigate whether there is some essential connection between the two inequalities; for that would be to ask, in other words, whether those who command are necessarily worthier than those who obey, and whether bodily or mental strength, wisdom or virtue, are always found in the same individuals in proportion to their power or wealth: a question perhaps fit to be debated among slaves within hearing of their masters, but not among reasonable and free men in search of truth.
What, then, precisely is the purpose of this Discourse? To mark, in the course of events, the moment when right succeeded violence and nature was subjected to law; to explain by what chain of wonders the strong could resolve to serve the weak, and the people to buy an imagined repose at the price of real happiness.
The philosophers who have examined the foundations of society have all felt the need to go back to the state of nature, but none has reached it. Some have not hesitated to assume that man in that condition possessed the notion of just and unjust, without troubling to show that he must have had that notion, or even that it would have been useful to him. Others have spoken of the natural right of each to preserve what belongs to him, without explaining what they meant by belonging. Others, granting the strongest authority over the weakest from the outset, immediately brought government into being, without considering the time that must have passed before the meanings of the words authority and government could exist among men. Finally, all of them, speaking incessantly of need, greed, oppression, desires, and pride, have transferred to the state of nature ideas they drew from society: they spoke of savage man, and they painted civil man. It did not even occur to most of our philosophers to doubt that the state of nature had existed, whereas a reading of the sacred books makes it evident that the first man, having received knowledge and commandments directly from God, was not himself in that condition. If we give the writings of Moses the faith that every Christian philosopher owes them, we must deny that men were ever in a pure state of nature, even before the flood, unless some extraordinary event cast them back into it—a paradox most difficult to defend and altogether impossible to prove.
Let us begin, then, by setting aside all the facts, for they do not bear on the question. The inquiries that may be made into this subject must not be taken for historical truths, but only for hypothetical and conditional reasonings, better suited to illuminating the nature of things than to showing their actual origin, like the reasonings our physicists make every day about the formation of the world. Religion commands us to believe that, since God himself took men out of the state of nature immediately after creation, they are unequal because he willed them to be so. But religion does not forbid us to form conjectures, drawn solely from the nature of man and the beings around him, about what the human race might have become if left to itself. That is what I am asked to do, and what I propose to examine in this Discourse. Since my subject concerns man in general, I shall try to speak in a language suited to every nation; or rather, forgetting times and places in order to think only of the men to whom I speak, I shall imagine myself in the Lyceum at Athens, repeating the lessons of my teachers, with men like Plato and Xenocrates as my judges and the human race as my audience.
O man, whatever country you come from, whatever opinions you hold, listen: here is your history as I believe I have read it, not in the books of your fellow men, who lie, but in nature, who never lies. Whatever comes from her will be true; only what I have unwittingly mingled with it from myself will be false. The times of which I shall speak are very distant: how greatly you have changed from what you were! It is, so to speak, the life of your species that I shall describe, from the qualities you received, which your education and habits may have corrupted but could not destroy. There is, I know, an age at which the individual man would wish to stop: you will seek the age at which you wish your species had stopped. Discontented with your present condition for reasons that foretell still greater discontent to your unhappy descendants, perhaps you would wish to turn back; and that feeling ought to praise your earliest forebears, condemn your contemporaries, and fill with dread those unfortunate enough to live after you.
PART ONE.
However important it is, in order to judge man's natural condition properly, to consider him from his origin and examine him, as it were, in the first embryo of the species, I will not follow his organization through its successive developments. I will not pause to inquire what he may have been in the animal system at first before becoming what he is at last. I will not examine whether, as Aristotle thinks, his long nails were once hooked claws; whether he was hairy like a bear; or whether, walking on all fours (Note 3), his eyes directed toward the ground and limited to a horizon only a few paces away, marked both the character and the limits of his ideas. On this subject I could form only vague and almost imaginary conjectures. Comparative anatomy has made too little progress, and the observations of naturalists are still too uncertain, to establish the basis of sound reasoning on such foundations. Thus, without recourse to the supernatural knowledge we possess on this point, and without considering the changes that must have occurred in man's form, both inward and outward, as he put his limbs to new uses and fed on new foods, I shall suppose him always formed as I see him today: walking on two feet, using his hands as we use ours, sweeping all nature with his gaze and measuring with his eyes the vast extent of the heavens. Strip this being, thus constituted, of all the supernatural gifts he may have received and all the artificial faculties he could have acquired only by long development; consider him, in short, as he must have emerged from nature's hands, and I see an animal less strong than some, less agile than others, but, all things considered, the most advantageously formed of all. I see him satisfying his hunger beneath an oak, quenching his thirst at the first stream, finding his bed at the foot of the same tree that supplied his meal; and with that his needs are met.
The earth, left to its natural fertility (Note 4) and covered with immense forests never mutilated by the ax, offers at every step stores of food and places of refuge to animals of every kind. Men, scattered among them, observe and imitate their ingenuity, and thus rise to the level of animal instinct; with this advantage: each species has only its own instinct, while man, perhaps possessing none peculiar to himself, appropriates them all, feeds alike on most of the various foods (Note 5) that the other animals divide among themselves, and consequently finds his subsistence more easily than any of them can.
Accustomed from childhood to the inclemency of the weather and the harshness of the seasons, trained to endure fatigue, and compelled, naked and unarmed, to defend their lives and their prey against other wild beasts or outrun them, men develop a robust and almost unchangeable constitution. Children, bringing into the world the excellent constitution of their fathers and strengthening it through the same exercises that produced it, thus acquire all the vigor of which the human species is capable. Nature treats them exactly as the law of Sparta treated the citizens' children: she makes those who are well formed strong and robust, and lets all the others perish. In this she differs from our societies, where the state, by making children a burden to their fathers, kills them indiscriminately before they are born.
Since the savage man's body is the only tool he knows, he puts it to a variety of uses of which our own bodies, for lack of practice, are incapable; it is our ingenuity that robs us of the strength and agility necessity compels him to acquire. If he had an ax, would his wrist break such sturdy branches? If he had a sling, would he hurl a stone so forcefully by hand? If he had a ladder, would he climb a tree so nimbly? If he had a horse, would he run so fast? Give civil man time to gather all his machines around him, and there is no doubt he will easily overcome savage man. But if you wish to see a contest more unequal still, set them naked and unarmed face to face, and you will soon recognize the advantage of having all one's powers constantly at hand, of being always ready for any event, and of carrying, so to speak, one's entire self wherever one goes (Note 6).
Hobbes maintains that man is naturally fearless and seeks only to attack and fight. An illustrious philosopher thinks the opposite, and Cumberland and Puffendorf affirm it too: that nothing is so timid as man in the state of nature, that he is forever trembling and ready to flee at the faintest sound he hears, the slightest movement he sees. This may be true of things he does not know; and I do not doubt that every unfamiliar sight alarms him whenever he cannot distinguish what physical good or evil to expect from it, or compare his strength with the dangers he must face. Such circumstances are rare in the state of nature, where everything proceeds so uniformly and the face of the earth is not subject to the sudden, continual changes produced in it by the passions and inconstancy of assembled peoples. But savage man, living scattered among the animals and finding himself early on in situations where he must measure himself against them, soon makes the comparison; and, perceiving that he surpasses them in skill more than they surpass him in strength, he learns to fear them no longer. Set a bear or wolf against a sturdy, agile, courageous savage—as all savages are—armed with stones and a stout stick, and you will see that the peril is at least mutual. After several such encounters, wild beasts, which do not like to attack one another, will be little inclined to attack a man they have found every bit as fierce as themselves. As for animals whose strength really exceeds his skill, he stands in relation to them as do other, weaker species, which nonetheless survive; with this advantage for man: no less fleet of foot than they, and finding nearly certain refuge in trees, he can everywhere choose whether to engage or withdraw in an encounter, whether to flee or fight. Let us add that no animal seems naturally to make war on man except in self-defense or extreme hunger, or to show toward him those violent antipathies which seem to indicate that nature has destined one species to be another's food.
These are doubtless the reasons why Black people and savages concern themselves so little with the wild beasts they may meet in the woods. The Caribs of Venezuela, among others, live in the most complete security in this respect, without the least inconvenience. Though they go almost naked, says François Corréal, they venture boldly into the woods armed only with bow and arrow; yet no one has ever heard that any of them was devoured by beasts.
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).
DISCOURSE ON THE ORIGIN AND FOUNDATIONS OF INEQUALITY AMONG HUMAN BEINGS.
It is human beings I must talk about. The very question I am examining tells me I will be speaking to human beings, for nobody raises such questions when they are afraid to honor the truth. So I will confidently defend the cause of humanity before the wise people who invite me to do so. I will be satisfied with myself if I prove worthy of my subject and my judges.
I see two kinds of inequality in the human species. I call one natural or physical inequality because nature establishes it. It consists of differences in age, health, bodily strength, and qualities of mind or character. The other may be called moral or political inequality because it depends on a kind of agreement and is established, or at least approved, by people's consent. It consists of the different advantages some enjoy at others' expense: being richer, more honored, or more powerful than others, or even making others obey them.
It makes no sense to ask where natural inequality comes from, since the answer is already contained in the definition of the term. It makes even less sense to ask whether the two kinds of inequality have some essential connection. That would be another way of asking whether those who give orders are necessarily better than those who obey, or whether physical or mental strength, wisdom, or virtue always belong to people in proportion to their power or wealth. Perhaps that is a good question for enslaved people to debate within hearing of their masters. But it is not a question for reasonable, free people seeking the truth.
What exactly is this Discourse about, then? It is about identifying the point in the course of events when right replaced violence and nature was subjected to law. It is about explaining what extraordinary chain of events could have persuaded the strong to serve the weak and the people to pay for an imagined peace with real happiness.
The philosophers who have examined the foundations of society have all felt the need to go back to the state of nature, but none has reached it. Some readily assumed that human beings in that condition understood justice and injustice, without trying to show why they would have that understanding or even what use it would be to them. Others spoke of everyone's natural right to keep what belongs to them, without explaining what they meant by belonging. Others immediately gave the strongest authority over the weakest, and brought government into existence at once, without considering how much time had to pass before human beings could even understand the words authority and government. Finally, all of them constantly talked about needs, greed, oppression, desires, and pride, transferring to the state of nature ideas they had taken from society. They spoke of wild man but described civil man. Most of our own thinkers never even considered doubting that the state of nature had existed. Yet it is clear from the sacred books that the first man, having received knowledge and instructions directly from God, was not himself in that condition. If we give the writings of Moses the belief every Christian philosopher owes them, we must deny that human beings ever lived in a pure state of nature, even before the flood, unless some extraordinary event caused them to fall back into it. This is a paradox very hard to defend and quite impossible to prove.
Let us begin, then, by setting aside all the facts, for they have no bearing on the question. These inquiries should not be taken as historical truths, but only as hypothetical, conditional arguments. They are better suited to explaining the nature of things than to showing their actual origin. They are like the arguments our physicists make every day about how the world was formed. Religion tells us to believe that God himself took human beings out of the state of nature right after creating them, and that they are unequal because he wanted them to be. But religion does not forbid us to make guesses based solely on human nature and the nature of the beings around us about what the human species might have become if left to itself. That is what I have been asked, and what I plan to examine in this Discourse. Since my subject concerns humanity in general, I will try to use language that suits all nations. Or rather, forgetting times and places to think only of the people I am addressing, I will imagine myself in the Lyceum at Athens, repeating my teachers' lessons, with Platos and Xenocrates as my judges and all humanity as my audience.
O human being, wherever you are from and whatever your opinions, listen. Here is your history as I believe I have read it, not in the books of other people, which lie, but in nature, which never lies. Everything that comes from nature will be true; only what I have unknowingly added myself will be false. The times I will describe are very far away. How different you are from what you were! I will, so to speak, describe the life of your species from the qualities you received. Education and habit may have spoiled them but could not destroy them. I know that each person has an age at which they wish they could stop growing older. You will look for the age at which you wish your species could have stopped. You are unhappy with your present condition for reasons that suggest your unfortunate descendants will be still more unhappy. Perhaps you wish you could go back. That feeling should be a tribute to your earliest ancestors, a criticism of your contemporaries, and a source of fear for those unlucky enough to live after you.
PART ONE.
To judge the natural condition of human beings properly, it is important to look at them from their origin and examine them, so to speak, in the first embryo of the species. Even so, I will not trace the successive stages of their physical development. I will not stop to investigate what they may first have been in the animal world before finally becoming what they are. I will not ask whether, as Aristotle thinks, their long fingernails were originally curved claws; whether they were hairy like bears; or whether, walking on four feet (Note 3), they stared at the ground and could see only a few steps ahead, limiting the nature and scope of their ideas. I could make only vague, almost imaginary guesses about this subject. Comparative anatomy has made too little progress, and naturalists' observations are still too uncertain, for us to build sound arguments on such foundations. So I will not appeal to what we know on this matter through supernatural sources, or consider the changes that must have occurred in people's internal and external physical makeup as they used their limbs in new ways and ate new foods. Instead I will assume that human beings have always been shaped as I see them today: walking on two feet, using their hands as we use ours, looking out over all of nature and measuring the vast sky with their eyes. Strip this being of all the supernatural gifts it may have received and all the artificial abilities it could have gained only through a long process of development. In short, consider it as it must have come from nature's hands. I see an animal weaker than some others and less agile than others, but on the whole more favorably equipped than any of them. I see it eating its fill beneath an oak, drinking from the first stream it finds, and sleeping at the foot of the same tree that provided its meal. Its needs are met.
Left to its natural fertility (Note 4), the earth is covered with immense forests that no ax has ever cut down. Everywhere it offers supplies and shelter to animals of every kind. Human beings, scattered among them, watch and imitate the animals' skills, and in this way reach the level of their instincts. Each animal species has only its own instinct, while humans, perhaps having none of their own, adopt them all. They eat most of the different foods (Note 5) on which other animals separately depend. As a result, they find food more easily than any other animal can.
From childhood, human beings are used to rough weather and harsh seasons and trained to bear fatigue. They must defend their lives and their prey, naked and unarmed, against other wild animals, or outrun them. So they develop strong bodies that can withstand almost anything. Children inherit their fathers' excellent health, and strengthen it through the same activities that produced it. This gives them all the strength the human species can develop. Nature treats them just as the law of Sparta treated citizens' children: it makes those born healthy strong and sturdy and lets all the others die. Our societies are different. By making children a burden to their fathers, the state kills them indiscriminately before they are born.
A wild person's body is the only tool they know, so they use it for many tasks that ours, through lack of exercise, cannot perform. Our inventions take away the strength and agility necessity forces them to develop. If this person had an ax, would their wrist break such sturdy branches? If they had a sling, would they throw a stone so hard by hand? If they had a ladder, would they climb a tree so nimbly? If they had a horse, would they run so fast? Give a civilized person time to gather all their tools around them, and they will certainly overcome a wild person with ease. But if you want to see an even more unequal fight, put the two face to face, naked and unarmed. You will soon see the advantage of always having all your strength at your disposal, always being ready for anything, and, so to speak, always carrying your whole self with you (Note 6).
Hobbes claims that humans are naturally fearless and seek only to attack and fight. A famous philosopher thinks the opposite; Cumberland and Puffendorf say so too. According to them, nothing is as timid as a person in the state of nature, who is always trembling and ready to flee at the slightest noise or movement. This may be true of things a person does not know. I have no doubt that unfamiliar sights frighten them whenever they cannot tell whether to expect physical benefit or harm, or compare their strength with the dangers they face. But such circumstances are rare in the state of nature, where everything goes on so regularly and the face of the earth does not undergo the sudden, constant changes caused by the passions and inconstancy of people living together. A wild person lives scattered among animals and early on has occasion to test their strength against them. They soon learn the comparison. Feeling that their skill surpasses the animals' strength by more than the animals' strength surpasses their skill, they stop fearing them. Put a bear or a wolf up against a sturdy, quick, brave wild person—as they all are—armed with stones and a good stick. You will see that the danger is at least equal on both sides. After several such encounters, wild animals, which do not like attacking one another, will be reluctant to attack a human being whom they find just as fierce as themselves. As for animals whose greater strength really does exceed human skill, humans stand in relation to them as other weaker species do, and those species still survive. Humans also have an advantage: they can run just as well as these other species and can find almost certain refuge in trees. So whenever they meet a stronger animal, they can engage or withdraw, choosing whether to flee or fight. Moreover, no animal seems naturally to wage war on humans except in self-defense or extreme hunger. Nor does any animal seem to show toward them the violent hostility that would suggest nature intended one species to be the other's food.
These are surely the reasons why Black people and wild peoples worry so little about the wild animals they may meet in the woods. The Caribs of Venezuela, among others, live in complete safety in this respect and suffer no trouble from them. Though they are almost naked, says François Corréal, they still boldly go into the woods armed with nothing but bow and arrow. Yet nobody has ever heard of one of them being eaten by wild animals.