Jean-Jacques Rousseau · Complete work
Part Two, 1
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SECONDE PARTIE.
Le premier qui, ayant enclos un terrain, s’avisa de dire: Ceci est à moi, et trouva des gens assez simples pour le croire, fut le vrai fondateur de la société civile. Que de crimes, de guerres, de meurtres, que de misères et d’horreurs n’eût point épargnés au genre humain celui qui, arrachant les pieux ou comblant le fossé, eût crié à ses semblables: Gardez-vous d’écouter cet imposteur; vous êtes perdus, si vous oubliez que les fruits sont à tous, et que la terre n’est à personne! Mais il y a grande apparence qu’alors les choses en étaient déjà venues au point de ne pouvoir plus durer comme elles étaient: car cette idée de propriété, dépendant de beaucoup d’idées antérieures qui n’ont pu naître que successivement, ne se forma pas tout d’un coup dans l’esprit humain: il fallut faire bien des progrès, acquérir bien de l’industrie et des lumières, les transmettre et les augmenter d’âge en âge, avant que d’arriver à ce dernier terme de l’état de nature. Reprenons donc les choses de plus haut et tâchons de rassembler sous un seul point de vue cette lente succession d’événements et de connaissances dans leur ordre le plus naturel.
Le premier sentiment de l’homme fut celui de son existence; son premier soin celui de sa conservation. Les productions de la terre lui fournissaient tous les secours nécessaires; l’instinct le porta à en faire usage. La faim, d’autres appétits, lui faisant éprouver tour à tour diverses manières d’exister, il y en eut une qui l’invita à perpétuer son espèce; et ce penchant aveugle, dépourvu de tout sentiment du cœur, ne produisait qu’un acte purement animal: le besoin satisfait, les deux sexes ne se reconnaissaient plus, et l’enfant même n’était plus rien à la mère sitôt qu’il pouvait se passer d’elle.
Telle fut la condition de l’homme naissant; telle fut la vie d’un animal borné d’abord aux pures sensations, et profitant à peine des dons que lui offrait la nature, loin de songer à lui rien arracher; mais il se présenta bientôt des difficultés, il fallut apprendre à les vaincre: la hauteur des arbres qui l’empêchait d’atteindre à leurs fruits, la concurrence des animaux qui cherchaient à s’en nourrir, la férocité de ceux qui en voulaient à sa propre vie, tout l’obligea de s’appliquer aux exercices du corps; il fallut se rendre agile, vite à la course, vigoureux au combat. Les armes naturelles, qui sont les branches d’arbre et les pierres se trouvèrent bientôt sous sa main. Il apprit à surmonter les obstacles de la nature, à combattre au besoin les autres animaux, à disputer sa subsistance aux hommes mêmes, ou à se dédommager de ce qu’il fallait céder au plus fort. À mesure que le genre humain s’étendit, les peines se multiplièrent avec les hommes. La différence des terrains, des climats, des saisons, put les forcer à en mettre dans leurs manières de vivre. Des années stériles, des hivers longs et rudes, des étés brûlants qui consument tout, exigèrent d’eux une nouvelle industrie. Le long de la mer, et des rivières, ils inventèrent la ligne et l’hameçon, et devinrent pêcheurs et ichtyophages. Dans les forêts ils se firent des arcs et des flèches, et devinrent chasseurs et guerriers. Dans les pays froids ils se couvrirent des peaux des bêtes qu’ils avaient tuées. Le tonnerre, un volcan, ou quelque heureux hasard, leur fit connaître le feu, nouvelle ressource contre la rigueur de l’hiver: ils apprirent à conserver cet élément, puis à le reproduire, et enfin à en préparer les viandes qu’auparavant ils dévoraient crues. Cette application réitérée des êtres divers à lui-même, et les uns aux autres, dut naturellement engendrer dans l’esprit de l’homme les perceptions de certains rapports. Ces relations que nous exprimons par les mots de grand, de petit, de fort, de faible, de vite, de lent, de peureux, de hardi, et d’autres idées pareilles, comparées au besoin, et presque sans y songer, produisirent enfin chez lui quelque sorte de réflexion, ou plutôt une prudence machinale qui lui indiquait les précautions les plus nécessaires à sa sûreté.
Les nouvelles lumières qui résultèrent de ce développement augmentèrent sa supériorité sur les autres animaux, en la lui faisant connaître. Il s’exerça à leur dresser des pièges, il leur donna le change en mille manières, et quoique plusieurs le surpassassent en force au combat, ou en vitesse à la course, de ceux qui pouvaient lui servir ou lui nuire, il devint avec le temps le maître des uns, et le fléau des autres. C’est ainsi que le premier regard qu’il porta sur lui-même y produisit le premier mouvement d’orgueil; c’est ainsi que sachant encore à peine distinguer les rangs, et se contemplant au premier par son espèce, il se préparait de loin à y prétendre par son individu. Quoique ses semblables ne fussent pas pour lui ce qu’ils sont pour nous, et qu’il n’eût guère plus de commerce avec eux qu’avec les autres animaux, ils ne furent pas oubliés dans ses observations. Les conformités que le temps put lui faire apercevoir entre eux, sa femelle et lui-même, le firent juger de celles qu’il n’apercevait pas, et voyant qu’ils se conduisaient tous, comme il aurait fait en de pareilles circonstances, il conclut que leur manière de penser et de sentir était entièrement conforme à la sienne, et cette importante vérité, bien établie dans son esprit, lui fit suivre par un pressentiment aussi sûr et plus prompt que la dialectique les meilleures règles de conduite que pour son avantage et sa sûreté il lui convînt de garder avec eux.
Instruit par l’expérience que l’amour du bien-être est le seul mobile des actions humaines, il se trouva en état de distinguer les occasions rares où l’intérêt commun devait le faire compter sur l’assistance de ses semblables, et celles plus rares encore où la concurrence devait le faire défier d’eux. Dans le premier cas il s’unissait avec eux en troupeau, ou tout au plus par quelque sorte d’association libre qui n’obligeait personne, et qui ne durait qu’autant que le besoin passager qui l’avait formée. Dans le second chacun cherchait à prendre ses avantages, soit à force ouverte s’il croyait le pouvoir, soit par adresse et subtilité s’il se sentait le plus faible.
Voilà comment les hommes purent insensiblement acquérir quelque idée grossière des engagements mutuels, et de l’avantage de les remplir, mais seulement autant que pouvait l’exiger l’intérêt présent et sensible; car la prévoyance n’était rien pour eux, et loin de s’occuper d’un avenir éloigné, ils ne songeaient pas même au lendemain. S’agissait-il de prendre un cerf, chacun sentait bien qu’il devait pour cela garder fidèlement son poste; mais si un lièvre venait à passer à la portée de l’un d’eux, il ne faut pas douter qu’il ne le poursuivît sans scrupule, et qu’ayant atteint sa proie il ne se souciât fort peu de faire manquer la leur à ses compagnons. Il est aisé de comprendre qu’un pareil commerce n’exigeait pas un langage beaucoup plus raffiné que celui des corneilles ou des singes, qui s’attroupent à peu près de même. Des cris inarticulés, beaucoup de gestes et quelques bruits imitatifs durent composer pendant longtemps la langue universelle, à quoi joignant dans chaque contrée quelques sons articulés et conventionnels dont, comme je l’ai déjà dit, il n’est pas trop facile d’expliquer l’institution, on eut des langues particulières, mais grossières, imparfaites, et telles à peu près qu’en ont encore aujourd’hui diverses nations sauvages. Je parcours comme un trait des multitudes de siècles, forcé par le temps qui s’écoule, par l’abondance des choses que j’ai à dire, et par le progrès presque insensible des commencements; car plus les événements étaient lents à se succéder, plus ils sont prompts à décrire. Ces premiers progrès mirent enfin l’homme à portée d’en faire de plus rapides. Plus l’esprit s’éclairait, et plus l’industrie se perfectionna. Bientôt cessant de s’endormir sous le premier arbre, ou de se retirer dans des cavernes, on trouva quelques sortes de haches de pierres dures et tranchantes, qui servirent à couper du bois, creuser la terre et faire des huttes de branchages, qu’on s’avisa ensuite d’enduire d’argile et de boue. Ce fut là l’époque d’une première révolution qui forma l’établissement et la distinction des familles, et qui introduisit une sorte de propriété; d’où peut-être naquirent déjà bien des querelles et des combats. Cependant comme les plus forts furent vraisemblablement les premiers à se faire des logements qu’ils se sentaient capables de défendre, il est à croire que les faibles trouvèrent plus court et plus sûr de les imiter que de tenter de les déloger; et quant à ceux qui avaient déjà des cabanes, chacun dut peu chercher à s’approprier celle de son voisin, moins parce qu’elle ne lui appartenait pas que parce qu’elle lui était inutile et qu’il ne pouvait s’en emparer, sans s’exposer à un combat très vif avec la famille qui l’occupait.
Les premiers développements du cœur furent l’effet d’une situation nouvelle qui réunissait dans une habitation commune les maris et les femmes, les pères et les enfants; l’habitude de vivre ensemble fit naître les plus doux sentiments qui soient connus des hommes, l’amour conjugal, et l’amour paternel. Chaque famille devint une petite société d’autant mieux unie que l’attachement réciproque et la liberté en étaient les seuls liens; et ce fut alors que s’établit la première différence dans la manière de vivre des deux sexes, qui jusqu’ici n’en avaient eu qu’une. Les femmes devinrent plus sédentaires et s’accoutumèrent à garder la cabane et les enfants, tandis que l’homme allait chercher la subsistance commune. Les deux sexes commencèrent aussi par une vie un peu plus molle à perdre quelque chose de leur férocité et de leur vigueur: mais si chacun séparément devint moins propre à combattre les bêtes sauvages, en revanche il fut plus aisé de s’assembler pour leur résister en commun.
Dans ce nouvel état, avec une vie simple et solitaire, des besoins très bornés, et les instruments qu’ils avaient inventés pour y pourvoir, les hommes jouissant d’un fort grand loisir l’employèrent à se procurer plusieurs sortes de commodités inconnues à leurs pères; et ce fut là le premier joug qu’ils s’imposèrent sans y songer, et la première source de maux qu’ils préparèrent à leurs descendants; car outre qu’ils continuèrent ainsi à s’amollir le corps et l’esprit, ces commodités ayant par l’habitude perdu presque tout leur agrément, et étant en même temps dégénérées en de vrais besoins, la privation en devint beaucoup plus cruelle que la possession n’en était douce, et l’on était malheureux de les perdre, sans être heureux de les posséder.
On entrevoit un peu mieux ici comment l’usage de la parole s’établit ou se perfectionne insensiblement dans le sein de chaque famille, et l’on peut conjecturer encore comment diverses causes particulières purent étendre le langage, et en accélérer le progrès en le rendant plus nécessaire. De grandes inondations ou des tremblements de terre environnèrent d’eaux ou de précipices des cantons habités; des révolutions du globe détachèrent et coupèrent en îles des portions du continent. On conçoit qu’entre des hommes ainsi rapprochés et forcés de vivre ensemble, il dut se former un idiome commun plutôt qu’entre ceux qui erraient librement dans les forêts de la terre ferme. Ainsi il est très possible qu’après leurs premiers essais de navigation, des insulaires aient porté parmi nous l’usage de la parole; et il est au moins très vraisemblable que la société et les langues ont pris naissance dans les îles et s’y sont perfectionnées avant que d’être connues dans le continent.
Tout commence à changer de face. Les hommes errant jusqu’ici dans les bois, ayant pris une assiette plus fixe, se rapprochent lentement, se réunissent en diverses troupes, et forment enfin dans chaque contrée une nation particulière, unie de mœurs et de caractères, non par des règlements et des lois, mais par le même genre de vie et d’aliments, et par l’influence commune du climat. Un voisinage permanent ne peut manquer d’engendrer enfin quelque liaison entre diverses familles. De jeunes gens de différents sexes habitent des cabanes voisines, le commerce passager que demande la nature en amène bientôt un autre non moins doux et plus permanent par la fréquentation mutuelle. On s’accoutume à considérer différents objets et à faire des comparaisons; on acquiert insensiblement des idées de mérite et de beauté qui produisent des sentiments de préférence. À force de se voir, on ne peut plus se passer de se voir encore. Un sentiment tendre et doux s’insinue dans l’âme, et par la moindre opposition devient une fureur impétueuse: la jalousie s’éveille avec l’amour; la discorde triomphe et la plus douce des passions reçoit des sacrifices de sang humain.
À mesure que les idées et les sentiments se succèdent, que l’esprit et le cœur s’exercent, le genre humain continue à s’apprivoiser, les liaisons s’étendent et les liens se resserrent. On s’accoutuma à s’assembler devant les cabanes ou autour d’un grand arbre: le chant et la danse, vrais enfants de l’amour et du loisir, devinrent l’amusement ou plutôt l’occupation des hommes et des femmes oisifs et attroupés. Chacun commença à regarder les autres et à vouloir être regardé soi-même, et l’estime publique eut un prix. Celui qui chantait ou dansait le mieux; le plus beau, le plus fort, le plus adroit ou le plus éloquent devint le plus considéré, et ce fut là le premier pas vers l’inégalité, et vers le vice en même temps: de ces premières préférences naquirent d’un côté la vanité et le mépris, de l’autre la honte et l’envie; et la fermentation causée par ces nouveaux levains produisit enfin des composés funestes au bonheur et à l’innocence.
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.
PART TWO.
The first man who enclosed a plot of land, thought of saying “This is mine,” and found people simple enough to believe him was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, wars, murders, how much misery and horror would have been spared the human race by someone who pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried to his fellows, “Beware of listening to this impostor; you are lost if you forget that the fruits belong to everyone and the earth to no one!” But it is very likely that by then things had reached a point where they could no longer remain as they were. For this idea of property, depending on many prior ideas that could only have arisen in succession, did not take shape in the human mind all at once. Many advances had to be made, much skill and knowledge acquired, passed on and increased from age to age, before this last stage of the state of nature could be reached. Let us therefore take up the story from farther back and try to gather into a single view this slow succession of events and discoveries in their most natural order.
Man's first feeling was that of his own existence; his first concern was his preservation. The earth's produce supplied everything he needed; instinct prompted him to use it. Hunger and other appetites made him experience, in turn, different ways of existing; one of these invited him to perpetuate his species. This blind inclination, devoid of any feeling of the heart, produced only a purely animal act. Once the need was satisfied, the two sexes no longer recognized each other, and even the child meant nothing more to its mother as soon as it could do without her.
Such was the condition of man at his beginning; such was the life of an animal at first limited to pure sensation, scarcely making use of nature's gifts, far from thinking to wrest anything from her. But difficulties soon arose, and he had to learn to overcome them. The height of trees kept him from reaching their fruit; animals competed for the same food; the fierceness of those that threatened his own life compelled him to exercise his body. He had to become agile, swift in running, vigorous in combat. Natural weapons, branches and stones, soon lay ready to hand. He learned to surmount nature's obstacles, to fight other animals when necessary, to contest his subsistence even with other men, or to compensate himself for what he had to yield to the stronger. As the human race spread, hardships multiplied along with men. Differences of terrain, climate, and season may have forced them to introduce differences into their ways of life. Barren years, long harsh winters, and scorching summers that consumed everything called for new ingenuity. Beside seas and rivers they invented the line and hook, becoming fishermen and eaters of fish. In forests they made bows and arrows and became hunters and warriors. In cold lands they covered themselves with the skins of beasts they had killed. Thunder, a volcano, or some fortunate accident brought them knowledge of fire, a new resource against the severity of winter. They learned to preserve this element, then to reproduce it, and at last to cook with it the meat they had previously devoured raw. Repeatedly relating different beings to himself and to one another must naturally have engendered in man's mind a perception of certain relations. These relations, which we express by the words large, small, strong, weak, fast, slow, timid, bold, and other such ideas, compared when needed and almost without thought, finally produced in him some kind of reflection—or rather a mechanical prudence that pointed out the precautions most necessary for his safety.
The new knowledge resulting from this development increased his superiority over other animals by making him aware of it. He practiced laying traps for them; he deceived them in a thousand ways. Though many surpassed him in fighting strength or running speed, in time he became master of some of those that could serve or hurt him, and the scourge of the rest. Thus the first glance he cast at himself stirred the first movement of pride; thus, though scarcely able yet to distinguish ranks, and viewing his species as occupying the highest, he was already preparing, in the distance, to claim that rank for himself as an individual. Though his fellow men were not to him what they are to us, and he had hardly more dealings with them than with other animals, they were not forgotten in his observations. The similarities that time allowed him to notice among them, his female, and himself led him to judge similarities he could not see. Observing that they all behaved as he would have done in like circumstances, he concluded that their ways of thinking and feeling were entirely like his own. Once firmly established in his mind, this important truth led him, by an intuition as reliable as and swifter than dialectic, to follow the best rules of conduct for his own advantage and safety in dealing with them.
Taught by experience that the desire for well-being is the sole motive of human actions, he became able to distinguish the rare occasions on which common interest would allow him to count on his fellows' help, and the still rarer occasions on which competition required him to distrust them. In the first case he joined them in a band, or at most in some kind of free association that bound no one and lasted only as long as the passing need that had brought it together. In the second, each sought his own advantage, by open force if he believed he could prevail, or by cleverness and cunning if he felt weaker.
This is how men could gradually acquire some rough idea of mutual commitments and the advantage of honoring them, but only so far as immediate and palpable interest required. Foresight meant nothing to them: far from attending to a distant future, they did not even think of the next day. If a deer was to be caught, each understood that he must faithfully hold his post; but should a hare pass within reach of one of them, there can be no doubt that he would pursue it without scruple and, once he had caught his prey, care very little that he had made his companions miss theirs. It is easy to understand that dealings of this kind called for a language hardly more refined than that of crows or monkeys, which gather in much the same way. Inarticulate cries, many gestures, and a few imitative sounds must for a long time have made up the universal language. In each region these acquired a few articulate and conventional sounds whose origin, as I have already said, is not very easy to explain. Thus particular languages arose, but they were crude and imperfect, much like those still spoken today by various savage nations. I pass over multitudes of centuries in a flash, pressed by passing time, by the abundance of things I have to say, and by the almost imperceptible progress of beginnings; for the more slowly events followed one another, the more quickly they can be described. These first advances at last put man in a position to make swifter ones. The more enlightened the mind became, the more skill improved. Soon, no longer falling asleep under the first tree or retreating into caves, people found kinds of axes made of hard, sharp stones, useful for cutting wood, digging into the earth, and making huts of branches, which they later thought to coat with clay and mud. This was the time of a first revolution, which brought about the establishment and separation of families and introduced a kind of property; perhaps many quarrels and fights already arose from it. Yet since the strongest were probably the first to build themselves shelters they felt capable of defending, we may believe that the weak found it quicker and safer to imitate them than to try to drive them out. And of those who already had huts, each must have had little wish to take possession of his neighbor's, less because it did not belong to him than because he had no use for it and could not seize it without exposing himself to a fierce fight with the family living there.
The first developments of the heart came from a new situation that brought husbands and wives, fathers and children together in a shared dwelling. The habit of living together gave rise to the gentlest feelings known to men, conjugal love and parental love. Each family became a small society, all the more closely united because mutual affection and freedom were its only bonds. It was then that the first difference arose in the way the two sexes lived, for until then they had lived in the same way. Women became more settled and grew accustomed to tending the hut and children, while the man went out to seek food for them all. Both sexes also began to lose something of their wildness and vigor through a somewhat softer life. But if each separately became less fit to fight wild beasts, it became easier to gather together and resist them in common.
In this new condition, with a simple, solitary life, very limited needs, and the tools they had invented to meet them, men enjoyed great leisure and used it to obtain various conveniences unknown to their fathers. This was the first yoke they imposed upon themselves without realizing it, and the first source of evils they prepared for their descendants. For besides continuing in this way to soften body and mind, these conveniences lost nearly all their charm through habit while at the same time degenerating into real needs. To be deprived of them became much more painful than possessing them was pleasant, and people were unhappy to lose them without being happy to have them.
We can see a little more clearly here how the use of speech gradually arose or developed within each family, and we may also conjecture how various particular causes could extend language and hasten its progress by making it more necessary. Great floods or earthquakes surrounded inhabited districts with water or chasms; changes in the globe detached and cut off parts of the mainland as islands. It is understandable that among men thus brought close together and forced to live together, a common idiom would form sooner than among those roaming freely through the forests of the mainland. It is therefore quite possible that, after their first attempts at navigation, islanders brought the use of speech among us; and it is at least very likely that society and languages originated on islands and developed there before becoming known on the continent.
Everything begins to change its face. Men who until now have wandered through the woods settle into a more fixed way of life; slowly they draw together, unite in various bands, and finally form a distinct nation in each region, united in customs and character not by rules and laws but by the same food and way of life and by the shared influence of the climate. Permanent proximity cannot fail in the end to create some ties between different families. Young people of different sexes live in neighboring huts; the passing intimacy nature demands soon leads, through their frequent meetings, to another intimacy no less sweet and more lasting. People become accustomed to considering different objects and making comparisons; gradually they acquire ideas of merit and beauty that produce feelings of preference. By seeing one another so often, they become unable to do without seeing one another again. A tender and gentle feeling enters the soul and at the slightest resistance becomes an impetuous fury. Jealousy wakes with love; discord triumphs, and the gentlest of passions receives sacrifices of human blood.
As ideas and feelings follow one another, and mind and heart find exercise, the human race continues to grow more accustomed to life together; connections spread and bonds tighten. People took to gathering before their huts or around a great tree. Song and dance, true children of love and leisure, became the amusement—or rather the occupation—of idle men and women gathered together. Each began to look at others and to want to be looked at in turn, and public esteem acquired a value. Whoever sang or danced best, whoever was most beautiful, strongest, most skillful, or most eloquent, became the most highly regarded. This was the first step toward inequality and at the same time toward vice. From these first preferences sprang vanity and contempt on one side, shame and envy on the other; and the ferment caused by these new leavens at last produced compounds fatal to happiness and innocence.
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).
PART TWO.
The first person who fenced off a piece of land, thought to say “This is mine,” and found people simple enough to believe him was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, wars, murders, miseries, and horrors would someone have spared the human race if he had pulled out the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried to his fellows, “Do not listen to this fraud. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to everyone and the earth itself to no one!” But things had very likely already reached a point where they could not go on as they were. The idea of property depended on many earlier ideas that could only have arisen one after another. It did not form all at once in the human mind. People had to make many advances, acquire much skill and knowledge, and pass these on and increase them from age to age before they reached this last stage of the state of nature. So let us go further back and try to bring this slow sequence of events and discoveries together in a single view, in their most natural order.
A person's first feeling was that he existed; his first concern was to keep himself alive. The products of the earth supplied everything he needed, and instinct led him to use them. Hunger and other appetites made him experience different ways of existing in turn. One appetite led him to perpetuate his species. This blind urge, without any feeling of the heart, produced a purely animal act. Once the need was satisfied, the two sexes no longer recognized one another. Even a child meant nothing more to its mother as soon as it could manage without her.
Such was the condition of humanity at its beginning. Such was the life of an animal at first limited to raw sensations, scarcely making use of the gifts nature offered him, much less thinking of wresting anything from it. But difficulties soon arose, and he had to learn to overcome them. Trees were too high for him to reach their fruit. Other animals competed with him for food, and fierce animals threatened his life. All this forced him to develop his body. He had to become agile, fast at running, and strong in a fight. Nature's weapons, branches and stones, were soon at hand. He learned to overcome natural obstacles, fight other animals when necessary, compete even with other people for food, or make up what he had to yield to the stronger person. As humanity spread, hardships multiplied along with people. Differences of terrain, climate, and seasons may have forced changes in their ways of living. Barren years, long harsh winters, and burning summers that consumed everything demanded new skills from them. By the sea and rivers they invented fishing line and hook and became fishers and fish-eaters. In forests they made bows and arrows and became hunters and warriors. In cold countries they covered themselves with the skins of animals they had killed. Thunder, a volcano, or some lucky accident introduced them to fire, a new resource against the harsh winter. They learned to preserve it, then to make it again, and finally to use it to cook the meat they had previously devoured raw. Repeatedly comparing different beings to himself and to one another must naturally have produced in the human mind an awareness of certain relationships. We express these relationships with words like big, small, strong, weak, fast, slow, timid, and bold. Comparing such ideas as the need arose, almost without thinking, eventually gave him some capacity for reflection—or rather an automatic caution that showed him the measures most necessary for his safety.
The new knowledge produced by this development increased his superiority over other animals by making him aware of it. He practiced setting traps for them and fooled them in a thousand ways. Although several of them were stronger in a fight or faster in a race, in time he mastered some of the animals that could help or harm him and became a scourge to the others. Thus his first look at himself gave rise to his first feeling of pride. He could barely distinguish ranks yet, but he saw his species as occupying first place, and was beginning, far in advance, to claim that place for himself as an individual. His fellow humans were not to him what they are to us, and he had hardly more dealings with them than with other animals. Even so, he did not overlook them in his observations. Over time he noticed similarities between himself, his mate, and other humans. These led him to infer similarities he could not observe. Seeing them all behave as he would have behaved in the same circumstances, he concluded that their ways of thinking and feeling were just like his own. Once this important truth was firmly established in his mind, a sense as reliable and quicker than logical argument led him to follow the rules of conduct toward them that best served his interests and safety.
Experience taught him that the desire for well-being is the only motive of human actions. He could then distinguish the rare occasions when a common interest let him count on help from others, and the still rarer occasions when competition made him wary of them. In the first case he joined them in a group, or at most in a sort of free association that bound no one and lasted only as long as the temporary need that had formed it. In the second, each person sought his own advantage, by open force if he thought he could use it, or by skill and cunning if he felt weaker.
This is how people could gradually gain a rough idea of mutual commitments and the advantage of keeping them, but only as far as their immediate, visible interest required. Foresight meant nothing to them. Far from worrying about the distant future, they did not even think of tomorrow. If they had to catch a deer, each understood that he should faithfully keep his position. But if a hare came within reach of one of them, he would undoubtedly chase it without a second thought. Having caught his prey, he would care very little that he had cost his companions theirs. It is easy to see that such dealings required a language hardly more refined than that of crows or monkeys, which gather in much the same way. For a long time, inarticulate cries, many gestures, and a few imitative sounds must have made up a universal language. To these each region added some conventional, articulate sounds whose origin, as I have already said, is not easy to explain. This produced separate languages, though rough and imperfect, much like the languages that various natural peoples still have today. I pass over countless centuries as swiftly as an arrow. Time is passing, I have much to say, and progress at the beginning was almost imperceptible: the slower events were in coming, the quicker they are to describe. These first advances at last put people in a position to advance more rapidly. As their minds grew more enlightened, their skills improved. Soon they stopped falling asleep under the first tree or retreating into caves. They devised a kind of axe from hard, sharp stone, and used it to cut wood, dig into the earth, and build huts of branches, which they later thought to coat with clay and mud. This was the time of a first revolution. It established and distinguished families and introduced a kind of property, which may already have given rise to many quarrels and fights. Yet the stronger were probably the first to build homes, since they felt able to defend them. The weaker, we may suppose, found it quicker and safer to imitate them than to try to drive them out. As for those who already had huts, each probably had little interest in taking a neighbor's. This was less because the hut did not belong to him than because it was of no use to him, and he could not take it without facing a fierce fight with the family occupying it.
The first developments of the heart followed from a new situation that brought husbands and wives, fathers and children, together in a shared dwelling. Living together out of habit gave rise to the tenderest feelings known to people: love between spouses and love for children. Each family became a small society, all the more closely united because mutual affection and freedom were its only bonds. It was then that the first difference in the two sexes' ways of life arose; until then they had lived in the same way. Women became more settled and grew used to looking after the hut and the children, while the man went to find food for them all. A somewhat softer life also began to take away some of the wildness and strength of both sexes. But while each individual became less able to fight wild beasts, it became easier for them to come together and resist the beasts as a group.
In this new condition, people lived simple, solitary lives. Their needs were very limited, and they had invented tools to meet them. They enjoyed a great deal of free time and used it to acquire various comforts unknown to their parents. This was the first yoke they unknowingly placed on themselves and the first source of harm they prepared for their descendants. The comforts continued to soften their bodies and minds. Habit also robbed these comforts of almost all their pleasure, while turning them into real needs. Losing them became much more painful than having them was pleasant. People were unhappy to lose them but not happy to have them.
Here we can see a little more clearly how speech gradually became established or developed within each family. We can also guess how various particular causes may have spread language and sped its growth by making it more necessary. Great floods or earthquakes surrounded inhabited areas with water or chasms. Changes in the earth cut off pieces of the mainland and made them islands. People brought close together in this way and forced to live with one another would clearly form a common way of speaking sooner than people who wandered freely through mainland forests. So it is quite possible that islanders brought the use of speech among us after their first attempts at navigation. It is at least very likely that society and languages began on islands and developed there before they were known on the mainland.
Everything now begins to change. People who until now wandered through the woods settle in more permanent places. They slowly draw closer, gather into different groups, and eventually form a distinct nation in each region. What unites each nation's customs and character is not regulations or laws, but a shared way of life and food, and the common influence of the climate. Lasting proximity must eventually produce ties between different families. Young men and women live in neighboring huts. The passing contact required by nature soon leads to another connection, just as pleasant and more lasting, through spending time together. People grow used to looking at different things and comparing them. They gradually acquire ideas of merit and beauty that give rise to preferences. Once they are used to seeing one another, they can no longer bear not to. A tender, gentle feeling enters the heart, but the slightest resistance turns it into fierce passion. Jealousy awakens with love. Conflict prevails, and the gentlest passion demands sacrifices of human blood.
As ideas and feelings follow one another and minds and hearts develop, humanity keeps becoming more accustomed to others. Relationships spread, and bonds grow closer. People grew used to gathering in front of their huts or around a great tree. Singing and dancing, true children of love and leisure, became the amusement—or rather the occupation—of idle men and women assembled together. Each began to look at others and to want others to look at him. Public esteem became something valuable. Whoever sang or danced best, whoever was most beautiful, strongest, most skillful, or most eloquent became the most respected. This was the first step toward inequality and toward vice at the same time. From these first preferences came vanity and contempt on one side, shame and envy on the other. The turmoil stirred up by these new ingredients eventually produced combinations that harmed happiness and innocence.