Jean-Jacques Rousseau · Complete work
Part One, 5
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Il est donc certain que la pitié est un sentiment naturel, qui, modérant dans chaque individu l’activité de l’amour de soi-même, concourt à la conservation mutuelle de toute l’espèce. C’est elle qui nous porte sans réflexion au secours de ceux que nous voyons souffrir: c’est elle qui, dans l’état de nature, tient lieu de lois, de moeurs et de vertu, avec cet avantage que nul n’est tenté de désobéir à sa douce voix: c’est elle qui détournera tout sauvage robuste d’enlever à un faible enfant, ou à un vieillard infirme, sa subsistance acquise avec peine, si lui-même espère pouvoir trouver la sienne ailleurs; c’est elle qui, au lieu de cette maxime sublime de justice raisonnée: Fais à autrui comme tu veux qu’on te fasse, inspire à tous les hommes cette autre maxime de bonté naturelle bien moins parfaite, mais plus utile peut-être que la précédente: Fais ton bien avec le moindre mal d’autrui qu’il est possible. C’est, en un mot, dans ce sentiment naturel, plutôt que dans des arguments subtils, qu’il faut chercher la cause de la répugnance que tout homme éprouverait à mal faire, même indépendamment des maximes de l’éducation. Quoiqu’il puisse appartenir à Socrate, et aux esprits de sa trempe, d’acquérir de la vertu par raison, il y a longtemps que le genre humain ne serait plus, si sa conservation n’eût dépendu que des raisonnements de ceux qui le composent. Avec des passions si peu actives, et un frein si salutaire, les hommes plutôt farouches que méchants, et plus attentifs à se garantir du mal qu’ils pouvaient recevoir que tentés d’en faire à autrui, n’étaient pas sujets à des démêlés fort dangereux: comme ils n’avaient entre eux aucune espèce de commerce, qu’ils ne connaissaient par conséquent ni la vanité, ni la considération, ni l’estime, ni le mépris, qu’ils n’avaient pas la moindre notion du tien et du mien, ni aucune véritable idée de la justice, qu’ils regardaient les violences qu’ils pouvaient essuyer comme un mal facile à réparer, et non comme une injure qu’il faut punir, et qu’ils ne songeaient pas même à la vengeance si ce n’est peut-être machinalement et sur-le-champ, comme le chien qui mord la pierre qu’on lui jette, leurs disputes eussent eu rarement des suites sanglantes, si elles n’eussent point eu de sujet plus sensible que la pâture: mais j’en vois un plus dangereux, dont il me reste à parler.
Parmi les passions qui agitent le cœur de l’homme, il en est une ardente, impétueuse, qui rend un sexe nécessaire à l’autre, passion terrible qui brave tous les dangers, renverse tous les obstacles, et qui dans ses fureurs semble propre à détruire le genre humain qu’elle est destinée à conserver. Que deviendront les hommes en proie à cette rage effrénée et brutale, sans pudeur, sans retenue, et se disputant chaque jour leurs amours au prix de leur sang? Il faut convenir d’abord que plus les passions sont violentes, plus les lois sont nécessaires pour les contenir: mais outre que les désordres et les crimes que celles-ci causent tous les jours parmi nous montrent assez l’insuffisance des lois à cet égard, il serait encore bon d’examiner si ces désordres ne sont point nés avec les lois mêmes; car alors, quand elles seraient capables de les réprimer, ce serait bien le moins qu’on en dût exiger que d’arrêter un mal qui n’existerait point sans elles.
Commençons par distinguer le moral du physique dans le sentiment de l’amour. Le physique est ce désir général qui porte un sexe à s’unir à l’autre; le moral est ce qui détermine ce désir et le fixe sur un seul objet exclusivement, ou qui du moins lui donne pour cet objet préféré un plus grand degré d’énergie. Or il est facile de voir que le moral de l’amour est un sentiment factice; né de l’usage de la société, et célébré par les femmes avec beaucoup d’habileté et de soin pour établir leur empire, et rendre dominant le sexe qui devrait obéir. Ce sentiment étant fondé sur certaines notions du mérite ou de la beauté qu’un sauvage n’est point en état d’avoir, et sur des comparaisons qu’il n’est point en état de faire, doit être presque nul pour lui. Car comme son esprit n’a pu se former des idées abstraites de régularité et de proportion, son coeur n’est point non plus susceptible des sentiments d’admiration et d’amour qui, même sans qu’on s’en aperçoive, naissent de l’application de ces idées; il écoute uniquement le tempérament qu’il a reçu de la nature, et non le goût qu’il n’a pu acquérir, et toute femme est bonne pour lui.
Bornés au seul physique de l’amour, et assez heureux pour ignorer ces préférences qui en irritent le sentiment et en augmentent les difficultés, les hommes doivent sentir moins fréquemment et moins vivement les ardeurs du tempérament et par conséquent avoir entre eux des disputes plus rares, et moins cruelles. L’imagination, qui fait tant de ravages parmi nous, ne parle point à des coeurs sauvages; chacun attend paisiblement l’impulsion de la nature, s’y livre sans choix, avec plus de plaisir que de fureur, et le besoin satisfait, tout le désir est éteint.
C’est donc une chose incontestable que l’amour même, ainsi que toutes les autres passions, n’a acquis que dans la société cette ardeur impétueuse qui le rend si souvent funeste aux hommes, et il est d’autant plus ridicule de représenter les sauvages comme s’entr’égorgeant sans cesse pour assouvir leur brutalité, que cette opinion est directement contraire à l’expérience, et que les Caraïbes, celui de tous les peuples existants qui jusqu’ici s’est écarté le moins de l’état de nature, sont précisément les plus paisibles dans leurs amours, et les moins sujets à la jalousie, quoique vivant sous un climat brûlant qui semble toujours donner à ces passions une plus grande activité.
À l’égard des inductions qu’on pourrait tirer dans plusieurs espèces d’animaux, des combats des mâles qui ensanglantent en tout temps nos basses-cours ou qui font retenir au printemps nos forêts de leurs cris en se disputant la femelle, il faut commencer par exclure toutes les espèces où la nature a manifestement établi dans la puissance relative des sexes d’autres rapports que parmi nous: ainsi les combats des coqs ne forment point une induction pour l’espèce humaine. Dans les espèces où la proportion est mieux observée, ces combats ne peuvent avoir pour causes que la rareté des femelles eu égard au nombre des mâles, ou les intervalles exclusifs durant lesquels la femelle refuse constamment l’approche du mâle, ce qui revient à la première cause; car si chaque femelle ne souffre le mâle que durant deux mois de l’année, c’est à cet égard comme si le nombre des femelles était moindre des cinq sixièmes. Or aucun de ces deux cas n’est applicable à l’espèce humaine où le nombre des femelles surpasse généralement celui des mâles, et où l’on n’a jamais observé que même parmi les sauvages les femelles aient, comme celles des autres espèces, des temps de chaleur et d’exclusion. De plus parmi plusieurs de ces animaux, toute l’espèce entrant à la fois en effervescence, il vient un moment terrible d’ardeur commune, de tumulte, de désordre, et de combat: moment qui n’a point lieu parmi l’espèce humaine où l’amour n’est jamais périodique. On ne peut donc pas conclure des combats de certains animaux pour la possession des femelles que la même chose arriverait à l’homme dans l’état de nature; et quand même on pourrait tirer cette conclusion, comme ces dissensions ne détruisent point les autres espèces, on doit penser au moins qu’elles ne seraient pas plus funestes à la nôtre, et il est très apparent qu’elles y causeraient encore moins de ravage qu’elles ne font dans la société, surtout dans les pays où les moeurs étant encore comptées pour quelque chose, la jalousie des amants et la vengeance des époux causent chaque jour des duels, des meurtres, et pis encore; où le devoir d’une éternelle fidélité ne sert qu’à faire des adultères, et où les lois mêmes de la continence et de l’honneur étendent nécessairement la débauche, et multiplient les avortements.
Concluons qu’errant dans les forêts sans industrie, sans parole, sans domicile, sans guerre, et sans liaisons, sans nul besoin de ses semblables, comme sans nul désir de leur nuire, peut-être même sans jamais en reconnaître aucun individuellement, l’homme sauvage sujet à peu de passions, et se suffisant à lui-même, n’avait que les sentiments et les lumières propres à cet état, qu’il ne sentait que ses vrais besoins, ne regardait que ce qu’il croyait avoir intérêt de voir, et que son intelligence ne faisait pas plus de progrès que sa vanité. Si par hasard il faisait quelque découverte, il pouvait d’autant moins la communiquer qu’il ne reconnaissait pas même ses enfants. L’art périssait avec l’inventeur; il n’y avait ni éducation ni progrès, les générations se multipliaient inutilement; et chacune partant toujours du même point, les siècles s’écoulaient dans toute la grossièreté des premiers âges, l’espèce était déjà vieille, et l’homme restait toujours enfant.
Si je me suis étendu si longtemps sur la supposition de cette condition primitive, c’est qu’ayant d’anciennes erreurs et des préjugés invétérés à détruire, j’ai cru devoir creuser jusqu’à la racine, et montrer dans le tableau du véritable état de nature combien l’inégalité, même naturelle, est loin d’avoir dans cet état autant de réalité et d’influence que le prétendent nos écrivains. En effet, il est aisé de voir qu’entre les différences qui distinguent les hommes, plusieurs passent pour naturelles qui sont uniquement l’ouvrage de l’habitude et des divers genres de vie que les hommes adoptent dans la société. Ainsi un tempérament robuste ou délicat, la force ou la faiblesse qui en dépendent, viennent souvent plus de la manière dure ou efféminée dont on a été élevé que de la constitution primitive des corps. Il en est de même des forces de l’esprit, et non seulement l’éducation met la différence entre les esprits cultivés et ceux qui ne le sont pas, mais elle augmente celle qui se trouve entre les premiers à proportion de la culture; car qu’un géant et un nain marchent sur la même route, chaque pas qu’ils feront l’un et l’autre donnera un nouvel avantage au géant. Or si l’on compare la diversité prodigieuse d’éducations et de genres de vie qui règne dans les différents ordres de l’état civil, avec la simplicité et l’uniformité de la vie animale et sauvage, où tous se nourrissent des mêmes aliments, vivent de la même manière, et font exactement les mêmes choses, on comprendra combien la différence d’homme à homme doit être moindre dans l’état de nature que dans celui de société, et combien l’inégalité naturelle doit augmenter dans l’espèce humaine par l’inégalité d’institution.
Mais quand la nature affecterait dans la distribution de ses dons autant de préférences qu’on le prétend, quel avantage les plus favorisés en tireraient-ils, au préjudice des autres, dans un état de choses qui n’admettrait presque aucune sorte de relation entre eux? Là où il n’y a point d’amour, de quoi servira la beauté? Que sert l’esprit à des gens qui ne parlent point, et la ruse à ceux qui n’ont point d’affaires? J’entends toujours répéter que les plus forts opprimeront les faibles; mais qu’on m’explique ce qu’on veut dire par ce mot d’oppression. Les uns domineront avec violence, les autres gémiront asservis à tous leurs caprices: voilà précisément ce que j’observe parmi nous, mais je ne vois pas comment cela pourrait se dire des hommes sauvages, à qui l’on aurait même bien de la peine à faire entendre ce que c’est que servitude et domination. Un homme pourra bien s’emparer des fruits qu’un autre a cueillis, du gibier qu’il a tué, de l’antre qui lui servait l’asile; mais comment viendra-t-il jamais à bout de s’en faire obéir, et quelles pourront être les chaînes de la dépendance parmi des hommes qui ne possèdent rien? Si l’on me chasse d’un arbre, j’en suis quitte pour aller à un autre; si l’on me tourmente dans un lieu, qui m’empêchera de passer ailleurs? Se trouve-t-il un homme d’une force assez supérieure à la mienne, et, de plus, assez dépravé, assez paresseux, et assez féroce pour me contraindre à pourvoir à sa subsistance pendant qu’il demeure oisif? Il faut qu’il se résolve à ne pas me perdre de vue un seul instant, à me tenir lié avec un très grand soin durant son sommeil, de peur que je ne m’échappe ou que je ne le tue: c’est-à-dire qu’il est obligé de s’exposer volontairement à une peine beaucoup plus grande que celle qu’il veut éviter, et que celle qu’il me donne à moi-même. Après tout cela, sa vigilance se relâche-t-elle un moment? Un bruit imprévu lui fait-il détourner la tête? Je fais vingt pas dans la forêt, mes fers sont brisés, et il ne me revoit de sa vie.
Sans prolonger inutilement ces détails, chacun doit voir que, les liens de la servitude n’étant formés que de la dépendance mutuelle des hommes et des besoins réciproques qui les unissent, il est impossible d’asservir un homme sans l’avoir mis auparavant dans le cas de ne pouvoir se passer d’un autre; situation qui n’existant pas dans l’état de nature, y laisse chacun libre du joug et rend vaine la loi du plus fort.
Après avoir prouvé que l’inégalité est à peine sensible dans l’état de nature, et que son influence y est presque nulle, il me reste à montrer son origine, et ses progrès dans les développements successifs de l’esprit humain. Après avoir montré que la perfectibilité, les vertus sociales et les autres facultés que l’homme naturel avait reçues en puissance ne pouvaient jamais se développer d’elles-mêmes, qu’elles avaient besoin pour cela du concours fortuit de plusieurs causes étrangères qui pouvaient ne jamais naître, et sans lesquelles il fût demeuré éternellement dans sa condition primitive; il me reste à considérer et à rapprocher les différents hasards qui ont pu perfectionner la raison humaine, en détériorant l’espèce, rendre un être méchant en le rendant sociable, et d’un terme si éloigné amener enfin l’homme et le monde au point où nous les voyons.
J’avoue que les événements que j’ai à décrire ayant pu arriver de plusieurs manières, je ne puis me déterminer sur le choix que par des conjectures; mais outre que ces conjectures deviennent des raisons, quand elles sont les plus probables qu’on puisse tirer de la nature des choses et les seuls moyens qu’on puisse avoir de découvrir la vérité, les conséquences que je veux déduire des miennes ne seront point pour cela conjecturales, puisque, sur les principes que je viens d’établir, on ne saurait former aucun autre système qui ne me fournisse les mêmes résultats, et dont je ne puisse tirer les mêmes conclusions.
Ceci me dispensera d’étendre mes réflexions sur la la manière dont le laps de temps compense le peu de vraisemblance des événements; sur la puissance surprenante des causes très légères lorsqu’elles agissent sans relâche; sur l’impossibilité où l’on est d’un côté de détruire certaines hypothèses, si de l’autre on se trouve hors d’état de leur donner le degré de certitude des faits; sur ce que deux faits étant donnés comme réels à lier par une suite de faits intermédiaires, inconnus ou regardés comme tels, c’est à l’histoire, quand on l’a, de donner les faits qui les lient; c’est à la philosophie, à son défaut, de déterminer les faits semblables qui peuvent les lier; enfin sur ce qu’en matière d’événements, la similitude réduit les faits à un beaucoup plus petit nombre de classes différentes qu’on ne se l’imagine. Il me suffit d’offrir ces objets à la considération de mes juges; il me suffit d’avoir fait en sorte que les lecteurs vulgaires n’eussent pas besoin de les considérer.
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.
It is certain, then, that pity is a natural feeling which, by moderating the activity of self-preservation in each individual, contributes to the mutual preservation of the entire species. It is pity that moves us, without reflection, to help those we see suffering; pity that, in the state of nature, takes the place of laws, customs, and virtue, with the advantage that no one is tempted to disobey its gentle voice; pity that will prevent any sturdy savage from taking the hard-won food of a weak child or an infirm old man, if he hopes to find his own elsewhere. Instead of that sublime maxim of reasoned justice, “Do to others as you would have them do to you,” pity inspires in all men another maxim of natural goodness, far less perfect but perhaps more useful: “Do what is good for you with as little harm to others as possible.” In short, it is in this natural feeling, rather than in subtle arguments, that we must seek the cause of the reluctance every man would feel to do wrong, even apart from the maxims of education. Though Socrates and minds of his caliber may be able to attain virtue by reasoning, the human race would have vanished long ago if its survival had depended solely on the reasoning of its members. With passions so little active and a restraint so salutary, men, more untamed than wicked and more intent on protecting themselves from harm than tempted to harm others, were not subject to very dangerous quarrels. They had no dealings of any kind with one another and consequently knew neither vanity nor standing, neither esteem nor contempt. They had not the slightest notion of yours and mine, nor any true idea of justice. They regarded violence suffered as an evil easily remedied, not an injury calling for punishment, and gave no thought even to revenge, except perhaps mechanically and on the spot, like a dog biting the stone thrown at it. Their disputes would rarely have ended in blood had there been no more sensitive cause for them than food; but I see a more dangerous cause, of which I must still speak.
Among the passions that stir the human heart is one ardent and impetuous, making each sex need the other: a terrible passion that defies every danger, overthrows every obstacle, and in its fury seems fit to destroy the human race it is destined to preserve. What will become of men in the grip of this unbridled, brutal frenzy, without modesty or restraint, fighting each day for their loves at the price of their blood? We must first admit that the more violent the passions, the more necessary laws are to contain them. But the disorders and crimes that these passions cause among us every day show plainly enough how inadequate laws are in this respect; and we would do well to ask whether these disorders arose along with the laws themselves. For if so, even supposing laws could suppress them, the least we should demand of laws would be that they stop an evil that would not exist without them.
Let us begin by distinguishing the moral from the physical element in the feeling of love. The physical is the general desire that moves one sex to unite with the other; the moral is what determines this desire and fixes it exclusively on a single object, or at least lends it greater intensity for the object preferred. Now it is easy to see that the moral element of love is an artificial feeling, born of life in society and cultivated by women with great skill and care to establish their dominion and make the sex that ought to obey the ruling one. Because this feeling rests on certain notions of merit or beauty that a savage cannot possess, and on comparisons he cannot make, it must be almost nonexistent for him. Just as his mind cannot form abstract ideas of regularity and proportion, so his heart cannot be moved to admiration and love, feelings born, even without our awareness, from the application of those ideas. He heeds only the temperament nature has given him, not a taste he has never been able to acquire, and any woman will do for him.
Confined to the physical element of love, and fortunate enough to know nothing of the preferences that inflame the feeling and increase its difficulties, men must feel the fires of desire less frequently and less keenly, and consequently have fewer and less cruel disputes among themselves. Imagination, which wreaks such havoc among us, says nothing to untamed hearts. Each calmly awaits the impulse of nature, yields to it without choosing, with more pleasure than fury, and once the need is satisfied, all desire dies away.
It is therefore beyond dispute that love itself, like every other passion, acquired only in society the impetuous ardor that so often makes it fatal to men. It is all the more absurd to portray savages as forever cutting one another's throats to satisfy their lust when this opinion directly contradicts experience. The Caribs, of all existing peoples the one that has so far departed least from the state of nature, are precisely the most peaceable in love and the least prone to jealousy, although they live in a scorching climate that seems always to give these passions greater force.
As for the inferences one might draw from the fights between males of several animal species—fights that keep our farmyards bloody throughout the year or fill our forests with cries in spring when males contest a female—we must first exclude every species in which nature has plainly established a different relation of strength between the sexes from that found among us. Thus the fights of cocks yield no inference about the human species. In species where the proportion is better observed, these fights can only arise from a scarcity of females relative to males, or from exclusive periods during which the female consistently refuses the male's approach, which amounts to the first cause: if each female accepts the male for only two months of the year, it is, in this respect, as though the number of females were smaller by five sixths. Neither case applies to the human species, where females generally outnumber males and where no one has ever observed females, even among savages, to have periods of heat and exclusion like those of other species. Moreover, in several of these animals the entire species becomes excited at once, producing a terrible moment of common ardor, tumult, disorder, and combat: a moment that does not occur in the human species, where love is never periodic. We cannot, therefore, infer from the fights of certain animals over females that the same would happen to man in the state of nature. Even if we could draw that conclusion, since these conflicts do not destroy the other species, we should at least suppose they would be no more fatal to our own; and it is quite clear that they would cause still less devastation there than they do in society, especially in countries where morals still count for something, and the jealousy of lovers and the vengeance of husbands cause duels, murders, and worse every day; where the duty of everlasting fidelity serves only to produce adultery; and where the very laws of chastity and honor necessarily extend debauchery and multiply abortions.
Let us conclude that savage man, wandering the forests without industry, speech, a home, war, or ties, with no need of his fellows and no desire to harm them, perhaps without ever recognizing any one of them individually, subject to few passions and sufficient in himself, had only the feelings and understanding suited to that condition. He felt only his real needs, looked only at what he thought it in his interest to see, and his intelligence advanced no further than his vanity. If chance led him to make a discovery, he was all the less able to communicate it because he did not even recognize his children. The skill died with its inventor. There was neither education nor progress; generations multiplied to no purpose, and each always beginning at the same point, the centuries passed in all the coarseness of the earliest ages. The species was already old, and man remained forever a child.
If I have dwelt so long on the supposition of this primitive condition, it is because I have ancient errors and deep-rooted prejudices to destroy. I thought it necessary to dig down to the root and to show, in a portrait of the true state of nature, how far inequality, even natural inequality, is from having in that state the reality and influence our writers claim for it. Indeed, it is easy to see that many of the differences distinguishing men are thought natural when they are entirely the work of habit and of the various ways of life men adopt in society. Thus a robust or delicate constitution, and the strength or weakness that results from it, often owe more to a harsh or pampered upbringing than to the body's original makeup. The same holds for powers of mind. Not only does education create a difference between cultivated minds and uncultivated ones; it increases the differences among cultivated minds in proportion to their cultivation. Let a giant and a dwarf walk the same road: every step each takes gives the giant a fresh advantage. Compare the prodigious variety of education and ways of life prevailing among the different ranks of civil society with the simplicity and uniformity of animal and savage life, where all eat the same foods, live in the same manner, and do exactly the same things. We then understand how much smaller the difference between one man and another must be in the state of nature than in society, and how much natural inequality in the human species must be increased by institutional inequality.
But even if nature showed as much favoritism in distributing its gifts as people claim, what advantage could the most favored gain at the expense of others in a condition allowing almost no relations among them? Where there is no love, what use is beauty? What use is intelligence to people who do not speak, or cunning to people who have no dealings? I constantly hear it said that the strong will oppress the weak; but let someone explain what is meant by this word oppression. Some will rule by violence, while others groan, enslaved to all their whims. That is precisely what I observe among us, but I cannot see how it could be said of savage men, to whom one would have great difficulty even explaining what servitude and dominion are. A man might seize the fruit another has picked, the game he has killed, the cave that sheltered him; but how could he ever get him to obey, and what chains of dependence could bind men who own nothing? If I am driven from one tree, I need only go to another. If I am tormented in one place, who will stop me from moving elsewhere? Is there a man so much stronger than I, and moreover so depraved, lazy, and fierce, that he can force me to provide for his subsistence while he remains idle? He must resolve not to let me out of his sight for a single instant, and to keep me very carefully tied while he sleeps, for fear that I escape or kill him. That is to say, he is obliged voluntarily to undertake a burden far greater than the one he wishes to escape, and greater than the one he imposes on me. After all that, does his vigilance slacken for a moment? Does an unexpected noise turn his head? I take twenty steps into the forest, my shackles are broken, and he never sees me again.
Without needlessly prolonging these details, everyone must see that the bonds of servitude are formed only from men's mutual dependence and the reciprocal needs that unite them. It is impossible to enslave a man without first putting him in a position where he cannot do without another; since this situation does not exist in the state of nature, everyone there remains free from the yoke, and the law of the strongest is rendered vain.
Having shown that inequality is scarcely perceptible in the state of nature and that its influence there is almost nothing, I must now show its origin and its progress through the successive development of the human mind. I have shown that perfectibility, the social virtues, and the other faculties natural man had received as latent powers could never develop of themselves; that they required the chance concurrence of several external causes which might never have arisen and without which he would have remained forever in his primitive condition. I must now consider and bring together the various accidents that may have perfected human reason while degrading the species, made a being wicked by making him sociable, and at last brought man and the world from so distant a starting point to the condition in which we see them.
I admit that the events I must describe could have happened in several ways, and that I can choose among them only by conjecture. But besides the fact that conjectures become grounds for reasoning when they are the most probable ones we can draw from the nature of things and the only means we have of discovering the truth, the conclusions I wish to draw from mine will not thereby be conjectural. For on the principles I have just established, no other account could be constructed that would not yield me the same results and allow me to draw the same conclusions.
This relieves me of the need to extend my reflections on the way the passage of time compensates for the slight probability of events; on the astonishing power of very slight causes when they act without ceasing; on the impossibility, on the one hand, of disproving certain hypotheses when, on the other, one cannot give them the certainty of facts; on how, when two facts are given as real and need to be connected by a series of intermediate facts that are unknown or regarded as such, it falls to history, when available, to supply the connecting facts, and to philosophy, in its absence, to identify similar facts that could connect them; and finally on how, where events are concerned, resemblance reduces facts to a far smaller number of distinct classes than one might imagine. It is enough for me to offer these matters to the consideration of my judges; it is enough that I have arranged for ordinary readers not to need to consider them.
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).
So it is certain that pity is a natural feeling. By moderating each person's drive for self-preservation, it helps preserve the whole species. Pity makes us help those we see suffering without stopping to think. In the state of nature, it takes the place of laws, customs, and virtue, with the advantage that no one is tempted to disobey its gentle voice. It will keep any strong natural man from taking food that a weak child or disabled old person has struggled to obtain, provided he hopes to find his own food elsewhere. Instead of the lofty rule of reasoned justice, “Do to others as you would have them do to you,” it gives everyone another rule of natural kindness, much less perfect but perhaps more useful: “Do what is good for you while doing as little harm to others as possible.” In short, we should look to this natural feeling, rather than subtle arguments, for the reason every person would be reluctant to do wrong, even apart from the lessons of education. Socrates and people like him may be able to become virtuous through reason. But humanity would have died out long ago if its survival had depended only on its members' reasoning. Their passions were so weak, and this restraint so helpful, that people were rough rather than wicked. They were more concerned to protect themselves from harm than tempted to harm others, and their quarrels were not very dangerous. They had no dealings with one another. So they knew nothing of vanity, standing, esteem, or contempt. They had no idea of yours and mine and no real idea of justice. They saw acts of violence against them as troubles easily put right, not offenses that called for punishment. They did not even think of revenge, except perhaps as an automatic and immediate reaction, like a dog biting a stone thrown at it. Their disputes would rarely have ended in bloodshed if food had been the most sensitive issue. But I see a more dangerous one, which I must now discuss.
Among the passions that move the human heart is a fierce, headlong one that makes each sex need the other. This terrible passion defies every danger and overturns every obstacle. In its fury it seems capable of destroying the human race, which it is meant to preserve. What will become of people in the grip of this unrestrained, brutal frenzy, without shame or restraint, fighting over their loves every day at the cost of their blood? We must first admit that the stronger passions are, the more laws are needed to contain them. Yet the disorder and crimes these passions cause among us every day show clearly enough that laws are inadequate for the purpose. We should also ask whether these disorders arose along with the laws themselves. If so, even if laws can restrain them, the least we should demand is that they stop a harm that would not exist without them.
Let us begin by distinguishing the moral side of love from its physical side. The physical side is the general desire that draws one sex to the other. The moral side directs that desire and fixes it exclusively on one person, or at least gives it greater force toward the preferred person. Clearly this moral side of love is an artificial feeling. It arose from social life and was praised by women with great skill and care to establish their rule and make the sex that ought to obey the dominant one. This feeling rests on ideas of merit or beauty that a natural man cannot have, and on comparisons he cannot make. So it must be almost nonexistent for him. His mind cannot form abstract ideas of regularity and proportion. Likewise, his heart cannot feel the admiration and love that arise from applying those ideas, even without our noticing it. He responds only to the bodily disposition nature has given him, not to a taste he could not have acquired. Any woman suits him.
Confined to the physical side of love, people are fortunate enough not to know the preferences that inflame desire and make it harder to satisfy. They must feel the heat of physical desire less often and less strongly. Their disputes with one another must therefore be rarer and less cruel. Imagination, which causes so much damage among us, does not speak to natural hearts. Each person peacefully waits for nature's prompting and gives in to it without choosing, with more pleasure than fury. Once the need is satisfied, all desire dies away.
It is therefore beyond dispute that love, like every other passion, acquired the headlong intensity that so often harms people only in society. It is especially absurd to picture natural people constantly cutting one another's throats to satisfy their lust. That view directly contradicts experience. The Caribs, of all peoples now living the least removed from the state of nature, are precisely the most peaceful in love and the least prone to jealousy, even though they live in a hot climate that seems always to make these passions more active.
Some may draw conclusions from the fights between males of various animal species. These fights bloody our farmyards at all times, or fill our forests with cries in spring as the males compete for females. But we must first set aside every species in which nature has clearly given the sexes a different balance of strength from ours. Thus fights between roosters tell us nothing about the human species. In species where the balance is closer to ours, these fights can only be caused by a shortage of females relative to males, or by exclusive periods when females consistently refuse males. The second amounts to the first: if each female accepts a male for only two months of the year, it is as if the number of females were five sixths smaller in that respect. Neither case applies to humans. Females generally outnumber males among us, and no one has ever observed females, even among natural peoples, having periods of heat and refusal like females of other species. What is more, in several of these animal species all members become excited at once. There comes a terrible moment of shared desire, turmoil, disorder, and fighting. No such moment occurs among humans, whose desire is never seasonal. We cannot conclude from the fights of some animals over females that humans would do the same in the state of nature. Even if we could, these conflicts do not destroy those other species. At the very least, we should suppose they would be no more fatal to ours. It is quite clear they would cause still less damage than they do in society, especially in countries where customs still count for something. There, the jealousy of lovers and the revenge of spouses cause duels, murders, and worse every day. The duty of lifelong fidelity merely creates adultery, while the very laws of chastity and honor necessarily spread sexual misconduct and increase abortions.
Let us conclude, then, that natural man wandered through forests without industry, speech, a home, war, or ties to others. He had no need of other people and no desire to harm them; perhaps he never even recognized any of them as individuals. Subject to few passions and sufficient in himself, he had only the feelings and knowledge suited to that condition. He felt only his real needs, noticed only what he thought it useful to notice, and made no more progress in intelligence than in vanity. If by chance he discovered something, he was even less able to pass it on because he did not even recognize his own children. A skill died with its inventor. There was no education and no progress. Generations multiplied to no purpose, and each began from the same starting point. Centuries passed in all the crudity of the earliest ages. The species was already old, but humanity remained a child.
I have spent so long on the supposition of this original condition because I had to uproot old errors and deep-seated prejudices. I thought I should dig down to their roots and show, in a picture of the true state of nature, how far inequality, even natural inequality, falls short of the reality and influence that our writers claim for it there. Indeed, it is easy to see that several differences between people pass for natural, though they result entirely from habit and the various ways of life people adopt in society. Thus a robust or delicate constitution, and the strength or weakness that follows from it, often owes more to a hard or sheltered upbringing than to the body's original makeup. The same holds for mental abilities. Education not only sets educated minds apart from uneducated ones. It also increases the differences among educated minds as their learning grows. If a giant and a dwarf walk along the same road, every step they each take gives the giant a further advantage. Now compare the enormous variety of upbringings and ways of life among the different ranks of civil society with the simple, uniform life of animals and natural people. There everyone eats the same foods, lives the same way, and does exactly the same things. We can then understand how much smaller the differences between people must be in the state of nature than in society, and how inequality created by institutions must increase natural inequality within the human species.
But suppose nature really did favor some people with its gifts as much as is claimed. What advantage could the favored gain at others' expense in a condition that allowed almost no relations between them? Where there is no love, what use is beauty? What use is intelligence to people who do not speak, or cunning to people who have no business with one another? I constantly hear that the strong will oppress the weak. But let someone explain what “oppression” means here. Some will rule by force; others will groan in bondage to their every whim. This is exactly what I see among us. But I do not see how it could apply to natural people, who would have a hard time even understanding servitude and domination. One person might seize fruit another has picked, game another has killed, or the cave that served another as shelter. But how could he ever make the other obey? What chains of dependence could exist among people who own nothing? If I am driven from one tree, I need only go to another. If I am tormented in one place, who can stop me from moving elsewhere? Is there a man so much stronger than I am, and also so depraved, lazy, and fierce, that he could force me to provide his food while he stays idle? He would have to resolve never to let me out of his sight for a moment and to keep me securely tied while he sleeps, for fear I might escape or kill him. That is, he would willingly have to take on far more trouble than the trouble he wants to avoid, or than he imposes on me. And after all that, what if his vigilance slips for a moment? What if an unexpected sound makes him turn his head? I take twenty steps into the forest, my bonds are broken, and he never sees me again.
There is no need to prolong these details. Everyone should see that the bonds of servitude arise only from people's mutual dependence and the shared needs that bring them together. A person cannot be enslaved unless he has first been put in a position where he cannot do without someone else. Since that condition does not exist in the state of nature, everyone there remains free from the yoke, and the rule of the strongest is useless.
I have shown that inequality is barely perceptible in the state of nature and has almost no influence there. I must now show its origin and its progress through the successive developments of the human mind. I have shown that perfectibility, social virtues, and the other capacities natural man possessed only as possibilities could never develop by themselves. Their development required the chance combination of several outside causes that might never have appeared. Without them, he would have stayed in his original condition forever. I must now consider and bring together the various accidents that could have improved human reason while worsening the species, made a being wicked by making him sociable, and finally brought humanity and the world, from such a distant starting point, to where we see them now.
I admit that the events I have to describe could have happened in several ways. I can choose between them only by conjecture. But conjectures become reasons when they are the most likely conclusions we can draw from the nature of things and the only means available for discovering the truth. Moreover, the conclusions I want to draw from my conjectures will not themselves be conjectural. Given the principles I have just established, no other account could be constructed that would not give me the same results and allow me to draw the same conclusions.
This saves me from dwelling on how the passage of time makes up for the low probability of events; on the surprising power of very slight causes when they operate without pause; and on the fact that some hypotheses cannot be disproved, even if they cannot be given the certainty of established facts. Suppose two events are given as real and need to be linked by a series of intermediate events, unknown or treated as unknown. Where history is available, its task is to supply the events that connect them. Where it is not, philosophy must identify similar events that could connect them. Finally, when it comes to events, similarities reduce the number of distinct kinds of fact far more than one might imagine. I need only offer these matters to my judges for consideration. I need only have arranged things so that ordinary readers do not have to consider them.