Discourse
First Part

However important it may be, in order to form a proper judgment of the natural state of man, to consider him from his origin, and to examine him, as it were, in the first embryo of the species; I shall not attempt to trace his organization through its successive approaches to perfection: I shall not stop to examine in the animal system what he might have been in the beginning, to become at last what he actually is; I shall not inquire whether, as Aristotle thinks, his neglected nails were no better at first than crooked talons; whether his whole body was not, bear-like, thick covered with rough hair; and whether, walking upon all-fours,¹ his eyes, directed to the earth, and confined to a horizon of a few paces extent, did not at once point out the nature and limits of his ideas. I could only form vague, and almost imaginary, conjectures on this subject. Comparative anatomy has not as yet been sufficiently improved; neither have the observations of natural philosophy been sufficiently ascertained, to establish upon such foundations the basis of a solid system. For this reason, without having recourse to the supernatural informations with which we have been favoured on this head, or paying any attention to the changes, that must have happened in the conformation of the interior and exterior parts of man's body, in proportion as he applied his members to new purposes, and took to new aliments, I shall suppose his conformation to have always been, what we now behold it; that he always walked on two feet, made the same use of his hands that we do of ours, extended his looks over the whole face of nature, and measured with his eyes the vast extent of the heavens.

If I strip this being, thus constituted, of all the supernatural gifts which he may have received, and of all the artificial faculties, which we could not have acquired but by slow degrees; if I consider him, in a word, such as he must have issued from the hands of nature; I see an animal less strong than some, and less active than others, but, upon the whole, the most advantageously organized of any; I see him satisfying the calls of hunger under the first oak, and those of thirst at the first rivulet; I see him laying himself down to sleep at the foot of the same tree that afforded him his meal; and behold, this done, all his wants are completely supplied.

The earth left to its own natural fertility² and covered with immense woods, that no hatchet ever disfigured, offers at every step food and shelter to every species of animals. Men, dispersed among them, observe and imitate their industry, and thus rise to the instinct of beasts; with this advantage, that, whereas every species of beasts is confined to one peculiar instinct, man, who perhaps has not any that particularly belongs to him, appropriates to himself those of all other animals, and lives equally upon most of the different aliments,³ which they only divide among themselves; a circumstance which qualifies him to find his subsistence, with more ease than any of them.

Men, accustomed from their infancy to the inclemency of the weather, and to the rigour of the different seasons; inured to fatigue, and obliged to defend, naked and without arms, their life and their prey against the other wild inhabitants of the forest, or at least to avoid their fury by flight, acquire a robust and almost unalterable habit of body; the children, bringing with them into the world the excellent constitution of their parents, and strengthening it by the same exercises that first produced it, attain by this means all the vigour that the human frame is capable of. Nature treats them exactly in the same manner that Sparta treated the children of her citizens; those who come well formed into the world she renders strong and robust, and destroys all the rest; differing in this respect from our societies, in which the state, by permitting children to become burdensome to their parents, murders them all without distinction, even in the wombs of their mothers.

The body being the only instrument that savage man is acquainted with, he employs it to different uses, of which ours, for want of practice, are incapable; and we may thank our industry for the loss of that strength and agility, which necessity obliges him to acquire. Had he a hatchet, would his hand so easily snap off from an oak so stout a branch? Had he a sling, would it dart a stone to so great a distance? Had he a ladder, would he run so nimbly up a tree? Had he a horse, would he with such swiftness shoot along the plain? Give civilized man but time to gather about him all his machines, and no doubt he will be an over-match for the savage: but if you have a mind to see a contest still more unequal, place them naked and unarmed one opposite to the other; and you will soon discover the advantage there is in perpetually having all our forces at our disposal, in being constantly prepared against all events, and in always carrying ourselves, as it were, whole and entire about us.⁴

Hobbes would have it that man is naturally void of fear, and always intent upon attacking and fighting. An illustrious philosopher thinks on the contrary, and Cumberland and Puffendorff likewise affirm it, that nothing is more fearful than man in a state of nature, that he is always in a tremble, and ready to fly at the first motion he perceives, at the first noise that strikes his ears. This, indeed, may be very true in regard to objects with which he is not acquainted; and I make no doubt of his being terrified at every new sight that presents itself, as often as he cannot distinguish the physical good and evil which he may expect from it, nor compare his forces with the dangers he has to encounter; circumstances that seldom occur in a state of nature, where all things proceed in so uniform a manner, and the face of the earth is not liable to those sudden and continual changes occasioned in it by the passions and inconstancies of collected bodies. But savage man living among other animals without any society or fixed habitation, and finding himself early under a necessity of measuring his strength with theirs, soon makes a comparison between both, and finding that he surpasses them more in address, than they surpass him in strength, he learns not to be any longer in dread of them. Turn out a bear or a wolf against a sturdy, active, resolute savage, (and this they all are,) provided with stones and a good stick; and you will soon find that the danger is at least equal on both sides, and that after several trials of this kind, wild beasts, who are not fond of attacking each other, will not be very fond of attacking man, whom they have found every whit as wild as themselves. As to animals who have really more strength than man has address, he is, in regard to them, what other weaker species are, who find means to subsist notwithstanding; he has even this great advantage over such weaker species, that being equally fleet with them, and finding on every tree an almost inviolable asylum, he is always at liberty to take it or leave it, as he likes best, and of course to fight or to fly, whichever is most agreeable to him. To this we may add that no animal naturally makes war upon man, except in the case of self-defence or extreme hunger; nor ever expresses against him any of these violent antipathies, which seem to indicate that some particular species are intended by nature for the food of others.

But there are other more formidable enemies, and against which man is not provided with the same means of defence; I mean natural infirmities, infancy, old age, and sickness of every kind, melancholy proofs of our weakness, whereof the two first are common to all animals, and the last chiefly attends man living in a state of society. It is even observable in regard to infancy, that the mother being able to carry her child about with her, wherever she goes, can perform the duty of a nurse with a great deal less trouble, than the females of many other animals, who are obliged to be constantly going and coming with no small labour and fatigue, one way to look out for their own subsistence, and another to suckle and feed their young ones. True it is that, if the woman happens to perish, her child is exposed to the greatest danger of perishing with her; but this danger is common to a hundred other species, whose young ones require a great deal of time to be able to provide for themselves; and if our infancy is longer than theirs, our life is longer likewise; so that, in this respect too, all things are in a manner equal;⁵ not but that there are other rules concerning the duration of the first age of life, and the number of the young of man and other animals,⁶ but they do not belong to my subject. With old men, who stir and perspire but little, the demand for food diminishes with their abilities to provide it; and as a savage life would exempt them from the gout and the rheumatism, and old age is of all ills that which human assistance is least capable of alleviating, they would at last go off, without its being perceived by others that they ceased to exist, and almost without perceiving it themselves.

In regard to sickness, I shall not repeat the vain and false declamations made use of to discredit medicine by most men, while they enjoy their health; I shall only ask if there are any solid observations from which we may conclude that in those countries where the healing art is most neglected, the mean duration of man's life is shorter than in those where it is most cultivated? And how is it possible this should be the case, if we inflict more diseases upon ourselves than medicine can supply us with remedies! The extreme inequalities in the manner of living of the several classes of mankind, the excess of idleness in some, and of labour in others, the facility of irritating and satisfying our sensuality and our appetites, the too exquisite and out of the way aliments of the rich, which fill them with fiery juices, and bring on indigestions, the unwholesome food of the poor, of which even, bad as it is, they very often fall short, and the want of which tempts them, every opportunity that offers, to eat greedily and overload their stomachs; watchings, excesses of every kind, immoderate transports of all the passions, fatigues, waste of spirits, in a word, the numberless pains and anxieties annexed to every condition, and which the mind of man is constantly a prey to; these are the fatal proofs that most of our ills are of our own making, and that we might have avoided them all by adhering to the simple, uniform and solitary way of life prescribed to us by nature. Allowing that nature intended we should always enjoy good health, I dare almost affirm that a state of reflection is a state against nature, and that the man who meditates is a depraved animal. We need only call to mind the good constitution of savages, of those at least whom we have not destroyed by our strong liquors; we need only reflect, that they are strangers to almost every disease, except those occasioned by wounds and old age, to be in a manner convinced that the history of human diseases might be easily composed by pursuing that of civil societies. Such at least was the opinion of Plato, who concluded from certain remedies made use of or approved by Podalyrus and Macaon at the Siege of Troy, that several disorders, which these remedies were found to bring on in his days, were not known among men at that remote period.

Man therefore, in a state of nature where there are so few sources of sickness, can have no great occasion for physic, and still less for physicians; neither is the human species more to be pitied in this respect, than any other species of animals. Ask those who make hunting their recreation or business, if in their excursions they meet with many sick or feeble animals. They meet with many carrying the marks of considerable wounds, that have been perfectly well healed and closed up; with many, whose bones formerly broken, and whose limbs almost torn off, have completely knit and united, without any other surgeon but time, any other regimen but their usual way of living, and whose cures were not the less perfect for their not having been tortured with incisions, poisoned with drugs, or worn out by diet and abstinence. In a word, however useful medicine well administered may be to us who live in a state of society, it is still past doubt, that if, on the one hand, the sick savage, destitute of help, has nothing to hope from nature, on the other, he has nothing to fear but from his disease; a circumstance, which oftens renders his situation preferable to ours.

Let us therefore beware of confounding savage man with the men, whom we daily see and converse with. Nature behaves towards all animals left to her care with a predilection, that seems to prove how jealous she is of that prerogative. The horse, the cat, the bull, nay the ass itself, have generally a higher stature, and always a more robust constitution, more vigour, more strength and courage in their forests than in our houses; they lose half these advantages by becoming domestic animals; it looks as if all our attention to treat them kindly, and to feed them well, served only to bastardize them. It is thus with man himself. In proportion as he becomes sociable and a slave to others, he becomes weak, fearful, mean-spirited, and his soft and effeminate way of living at once completes the enervation of his strength and of his courage. We may add, that there must be still a wider difference between man and man in a savage and domestic condition, than between beast and beast; for as men and beasts have been treated alike by nature, all the conveniences with which men indulge themselves more than they do the beasts tamed by them, are so many particular causes which make them degenerate more sensibly.

Nakedness therefore, the want of houses, and of all these unnecessaries, which we consider as so very necessary, are not such mighty evils in respect to these primitive men, and much less still any obstacle to their preservation. Their skins, it is true, are destitute of hair; but then they have no occasion for any such covering in warm climates; and in cold climates they soon learn to apply to that use those of the animals they have conquered; they have but two feet to run with, but they have two hands to defend themselves with, and provide for all their wants; it costs them perhaps a great deal of time and trouble to make their children walk, but the mothers carry them with ease; an advantage not granted to other species of animals, with whom the mother, when pursued, is obliged to abandon her young ones, or regulate her steps by theirs. In short, unless we admit those singular and fortuitous concurrences of circumstances, which I shall speak of hereafter, and which, it is very possible, may never have existed, it is evident, in every state of the question, that the man, who first made himself clothes and built himself a cabin, supplied himself with things which he did not much want, since he had lived without them till then; and why should he not have been able to support in his riper years, the same kind of life, which he had supported from his infancy?

Alone, idle, and always surrounded with danger, savage man must be fond of sleep, and sleep lightly like other animals, who think but little, and may, in a manner, be said to sleep all the time they do not think: self-preservation being almost his only concern, he must exercise those faculties most, which are most serviceable in attacking and in defending, whether to subdue his prey, or to prevent his becoming that of other animals: those organs, on the contrary, which softness and sensuality can alone improve, must remain in a state of rudeness, utterly incompatible with all manner of delicacy; and as his senses are divided on this point, his touch and his taste must be extremely coarse and blunt; his sight, his hearing, and his smelling equally subtle: such is the animal state in general, and accordingly if we may believe travellers, it is that of most savage nations. We must not therefore be surprised, that the Hottentots of the Cape of Good Hope, distinguish with their naked eyes ships on the ocean, at as great a distance as the Dutch can discern them with their glasses; nor that the savages of America should have tracked the Spaniards with their noses, to as great a degree of exactness, as the best dogs could have done; nor that all these barbarous nations support nakedness without pain, use such large quantities of Piemento to give their food a relish, and drink like water the strongest liquors of Europe.

As yet I have considered man merely in his physical capacity; let us now endeavour to examine him in a metaphysical and moral light.

I can discover nothing in any mere animal but an ingenious machine, to which nature has given senses to wind itself up, and guard, to a certain degree, against everything that might destroy or disorder it. I perceive the very same things in the human machine, with this difference, that nature alone operates in all the operations of the beast, whereas man, as a free agent, has a share in his. One chooses by instinct; the other by an act of liberty; for which reason the beast cannot deviate from the rules that have been prescribed to it, even in cases where such deviation might be useful, and man often deviates from the rules laid down for him to his prejudice. Thus a pigeon would starve near a dish of the best flesh-meat, and a cat on a heap of fruit or corn, though both might very well support life with the food which they thus disdain, did they but bethink themselves to make a trial of it: it is in this manner dissolute men run into excesses, which bring on fevers and death itself; because the mind depraves the senses, and when nature ceases to speak, the will still continues to dictate.

All animals must be allowed to have ideas, since all animals have senses; they even combine their ideas to a certain degree, and, in this respect, it is only the difference of such degree, that constitutes the difference between man and beast: some philosophers have even advanced, that there is a greater difference between some men and some others, than between some men and some beasts; it is not therefore so much the understanding that constitutes, among animals, the specifical distinction of man, as his quality of a free agent. Nature speaks to all animals, and beasts obey her voice. Man feels the same impression, but he at the same time perceives that he is free to resist or to acquiesce; and it is in the consciousness of this liberty, that the spirituality of his soul chiefly appears: for natural philosophy explains, in some measure, the mechanism of the senses and the formation of ideas; but in the power of willing, or rather of choosing, and in the consciousness of this power, nothing can be discovered but acts, that are purely spiritual, and cannot be accounted for by the laws of mechanics.

But though the difficulties, in which all these questions are involved, should leave some room to dispute on this difference between man and beast, there is another very specific quality that distinguishes them, and a quality which will admit of no dispute; this is the faculty of improvement; a faculty which, as circumstances offer, successively unfolds all the other faculties, and resides among us not only in the species, but in the individuals that compose it; whereas a beast is, at the end of some months, all he ever will be during the rest of his life; and his species, at the end of a thousand years, precisely what it was the first year of that long period. Why is man alone subject to dotage? Is it not, because he thus returns to his primitive condition? And because, while the beast, which has acquired nothing and has likewise nothing to lose, continues always in possession of his instinct, man, losing by old age, or by accident, all the acquisitions he had made in consequence of his perfectibility, thus falls back even lower than beasts themselves? It would be a melancholy necessity for us to be obliged to allow, that this distinctive and almost unlimited faculty is the source of all man's misfortunes; that it is this faculty, which, though by slow degrees, draws them out of their original condition, in which his days would slide away insensibly in peace and innocence; that it is this faculty, which, in a succession of ages, produces his discoveries and mistakes, his virtues and his vices, and, at long run, renders him both his own and nature's tyrant.⁷ It would be shocking to be obliged to commend, as a beneficent being, whoever he was that first suggested to the Oronoco Indians the use of those boards which they bind on the temples of their children, and which secure to them the enjoyment of some part at least of their natural imbecility and happiness.

Savage man, abandoned by nature to pure instinct, or rather indemnified for that which has perhaps been denied to him by faculties capable of immediately supplying the place of it, and of raising him afterwards a great deal higher, would therefore begin with functions that were merely animal:⁸ to see and to feel would be his first condition, which he would enjoy in common with other animals. To will and not to will, to wish and to fear, would be the first, and in a manner, the only operations of his soul, till new circumstances occasioned new developments.

Let moralists say what they will, the human understanding is greatly indebted to the passions, which, on their side, are likewise universally allowed to be greatly indebted to the human understanding. It is by the activity of our passions, that our reason improves: we covet knowledge merely because we covet enjoyment, and it is impossible to conceive why a man exempt from fears and desires should take the trouble to reason. The passions, in their turn, owe their origin to our wants, and their increase to our progress in science; for we cannot desire or fear anything, but in consequence of the ideas we have of it, or of the simple impulses of nature; and savage man, destitute of every species of knowledge, experiences no passions but those of this last kind; his desires never extend beyond his physical wants;⁹ he knows no goods but food, a female, and rest; he fears no evil but pain, and hunger; I say pain, and not death; for no animal, merely as such, will ever know what it is to die, and the knowledge of death, and of its terrors, is one of the first acquisitions made by man, in consequence of his deviating from the animal state.

I could easily, were it requisite, cite facts in support of this opinion, and show, that the progress of the mind has everywhere kept pace exactly with the wants, to which nature had left the inhabitants exposed, or to which circumstances had subjected them, and consequently to the passions, which inclined them to provide for these wants. I could exhibit in Egypt the arts starting up, and extending themselves with the inundations of the Nile; I could pursue them in their progress among the Greeks, where they were seen to bud forth, grow, and rise to the heavens, in the midst of the sands and rocks of Attica, without being able to take root on the fertile banks of the Eurotas; I would observe that, in general, the inhabitants of the north are more industrious than those of the south, because they can less do without industry; as if nature thus meant to make all things equal, by giving to the mind that fertility she has denied to the soil.

But exclusive of the uncertain testimonies of history, who does not perceive that everything seems to remove from savage man the temptation and the means of altering his condition? His imagination paints nothing to him; his heart asks nothing from him. His moderate wants are so easily supplied with what he everywhere finds ready to his hand, and he stands at such a distance from the degree of knowledge requisite to covet more, that he can neither have foresight nor curiosity. The spectacle of nature, by growing quite familiar to him, becomes at last equally indifferent. It is constantly the same order, constantly the same revolutions; he has not sense enough to feel surprise at the sight of the greatest wonders; and it is not in his mind we must look for that philosophy, which man must have to know how to observe once, what he has every day seen. His soul, which nothing disturbs, gives itself up entirely to the consciousness of its actual existence, without any thought of even the nearest futurity; and his projects, equally confined with his views, scarce extend to the end of the day. Such is, even at present, the degree of foresight in the Caribbean: he sells his cotton bed in the morning, and comes in the evening, with tears in his eyes, to buy it back, not having foreseen that he should want it again the next night.

The more we meditate on this subject, the wider does the distance between mere sensation and the most simple knowledge become in our eyes; and it is impossible to conceive how man, by his own powers alone, without the assistance of communication, and the spur of necessity, could have got over so great an interval. How many ages perhaps revolved, before men beheld any other fire but that of the heavens? How many different accidents must have concurred to make them acquainted with the most common uses of this element? How often have they let it go out, before they knew the art of reproducing it? And how often perhaps has not every one of these secrets perished with the discoverer? What shall we say of agriculture, an art which requires so much labour and foresight; which depends upon other arts; which, it is very evident, cannot be practised but in a society, if not a formed one, at least one of some standing, and which does not so much serve to draw aliments from the earth, for the earth would yield them without all that trouble, as to oblige her to produce those things, which we like best, preferably to others? But let us suppose that men had multiplied to such a degree, that the natural products of the earth no longer sufficed for their support; a supposition which, by the bye, would prove that this kind of life would be very advantageous to the human species; let us suppose that, without forge or anvil, the instruments of husbandry had dropped from the heavens into the hands of savages, that these men had got the better of that mortal aversion they all have for constant labour; that they had learned to foretell their wants at so great a distance of time; that they had guessed exactly how they were to break the earth, commit their seed to it, and plant trees; that they had found out the art of grinding their corn, and improving by fermentation the juice of their grapes; all operations which we must allow them to have learned from the gods, since we cannot conceive how they should make such discoveries of themselves; after all these fine presents, what man would be mad enough to cultivate a field, that may be robbed by the first comer, man or beast, who takes a fancy to the produce of it. And would any man consent to spend his day in labour and fatigue, when the rewards of his labour and fatigue became more and more precarious in proportion to his want of them? In a word, how could this situation engage men to cultivate the earth, as long as it was not parcelled out among them, that is, as long as a state of nature subsisted.

Though we should suppose savage man as well versed in the art of thinking, as philosophers make him; though we were, after them, to make him a philosopher himself, discovering of himself the sublimest truths, forming to himself, by the most abstract arguments, maxims of justice and reason drawn from the love of order in general, or from the known will of his Creator: in a word, though we were to suppose his mind as intelligent and enlightened, as it must, and is, in fact, found to be dull and stupid; what benefit would the species receive from all these metaphysical discoveries, which could not be communicated, but must perish with the individual who had made them? What progress could mankind make in the forests, scattered up and down among the other animals? And to what degree could men mutually improve and enlighten each other, when they had no fixed habitation, nor any need of each other's assistance; when the same persons scarcely met twice in their whole lives, and on meeting neither spoke to, or so much as knew each other?

Let us consider how many ideas we owe to the use of speech; how much grammar exercises, and facilitates the operations of the mind; let us, besides, reflect on the immense pains and time that the first invention of languages must have required: Let us add these reflections to the preceding; and then we may judge how many thousand ages must have been requisite to develop successively the operations, which the human mind is capable of producing.

I must now beg leave to stop one moment to consider the perplexities attending the origin of languages. I might here barely cite or repeat the researches made, in relation to this question, by the Abbé de Condillac, which all fully confirm my system, and perhaps even suggested to me the first idea of it. But, as the manner, in which the philosopher resolves the difficulties of his own starting, concerning the origin of arbitrary signs, shows that he supposes, what I doubt, namely a kind of society already established among the inventors of languages; I think it my duty, at the same time that I refer to his reflections, to give my own, in order to expose the same difficulties in a light suitable to my subject. The first that offers is how languages could become necessary; for as there was no correspondence between men, nor the least necessity for any, there is no conceiving the necessity of this invention, nor the possibility of it, if it was not indispensable. I might say, with many others, that languages are the fruit of the domestic intercourse between fathers, mothers, and children: but this, besides its not answering any difficulties, would be committing the same fault with those, who reasoning on the state of nature, transfer to it ideas collected in society, always consider families as living together under one roof, and their members as observing among themselves an union, equally intimate and permanent with that which we see exist in a civil state, where so many common interests conspire to unite them; whereas in this primitive state, as there were neither houses nor cabins, nor any kind of property, every one took up his lodging at random, and seldom continued above one night in the same place; males and females united without any premeditated design, as chance, occasion, or desire brought them together, nor had they any great occasion for language to make known their thoughts to each other. They parted with the same ease.¹⁰ The mother suckled her children, when just born, for her own sake; but afterwards out of love and affection to them, when habit and custom had made them dear to her; but they no sooner gained strength enough to run about in quest of food than they separated even from her of their own accord; and as they scarce had any other method of not losing each other, than that of remaining constantly in each other's sight, they soon came to such a pass of forgetfulness, as not even to know each other, when they happened to meet again. I must further observe that the child having all his wants to explain, and consequently more things to say to his mother, than the mother can have to say to him, it is he that must be at the chief expense of invention, and the language he makes use of must be in a great measure his own work; this makes the number of languages equal to that of the individuals who are to speak them; and this multiplicity of languages is further increased by their roving and vagabond kind of life, which allows no idiom time enough to acquire any consistency; for to say that the mother would have dictated to the child the words he must employ to ask her this thing and that, may well enough explain in what manner languages, already formed, are taught, but it does not show us in what manner they are first formed.

Let us suppose this first difficulty conquered: Let us for a moment consider ourselves at this side of the immense space, which must have separated the pure state of nature from that in which languages became necessary, and let us, after allowing such necessity,¹¹ examine how languages could begin to be established. A new difficulty this, still more stubborn than the preceding; for if men stood in need of speech to learn to think, they must have stood in still greater need of the art of thinking to invent that of speaking; and though we could conceive how the sounds of the voice came to be taken for the conventional interpreters of our ideas we should not be the nearer knowing who could have been the interpreters of this convention for such ideas, as, in consequence of their not having any sensible objects, could not be made manifest by gesture or voice; so that we can scarce form any tolerable conjectures concerning the birth of this art of communicating our thoughts, and establishing a correspondence between minds: a sublime art which, though so remote from its origin, philosophers still behold at such a prodigious distance from its perfection, that I never met with one of them bold enough to affirm it would ever arrive there, though the revolutions necessarily produced by time were suspended in its favour; though prejudice could be banished from, or would be at least content to sit silent in the presence of our academies, and though these societies should consecrate themselves, entirely and during whole ages, to the study of this intricate object.

The first language of man, the most universal and most energetic of all languages, in short, the only language he had occasion for, before there was a necessity of persuading assembled multitudes, was the cry of nature. As this cry was never extorted but by a kind of instinct in the most urgent cases, to implore assistance in great danger, or relief in great sufferings, it was of little use in the common occurrences of life, where more moderate sentiments generally prevail. When the ideas of men began to extend and multiply, and a closer communication began to take place among them, they laboured to devise more numerous signs, and a more extensive language: they multiplied the inflections of the voice, and added to them gestures, which are, in their own nature, more expressive, and whose meaning depends less on any prior determination. They therefore expressed visible and movable objects by gestures and those which strike the ear, by imitative sounds: but as gestures scarcely indicate anything except objects that are actually present or can be easily described, and visible actions; as they are not of general use, since darkness or the interposition of an opaque medium renders them useless; and as besides they require attention rather than excite it: men at length bethought themselves of substituting for them the articulations of voice, which, without having the same relation to any determinate object, are, in quality of instituted signs, fitter to represent all our ideas; a substitution, which could only have been made by common consent, and in a manner pretty difficult to practise by men, whose rude organs were unimproved by exercise; a substitution, which is in itself more difficult to be conceived, since the motives to this unanimous agreement must have been somehow or another expressed, and speech therefore appears to have been exceedingly requisite to establish the use of speech.

We must allow that the words, first made use of by men, had in their minds a much more extensive signification, than those employed in languages of some standing, and that, considering how ignorant they were of the division of speech into its constituent parts; they at first gave every word the meaning of an entire proposition. When afterwards they began to perceive the difference between the subject and attribute, and between verb and noun, a distinction which required no mean effort of genius, the substantives for a time were only so many proper names, the infinitive was the only tense, and as to adjectives, great difficulties must have attended the development of the idea that represents them, since every adjective is an abstract word, and abstraction is an unnatural and very painful operation.

At first they gave every object a peculiar name, without any regard to its genus or species, things which these first institutors of language were in no condition to distinguish; and every individual presented itself solitary to their minds, as it stands in the table of nature. If they called one oak A, they called another oak B: so that their dictionary must have been more extensive in proportion as their knowledge of things was more confined. It could not but be a very difficult task to get rid of so diffuse and embarrassing a nomenclature; as in order to marshal the several beings under common and generic denominations, it was necessary to be first acquainted with their properties, and their differences; to be stocked with observations and definitions, that is to say, to understand natural history and metaphysics, advantages which the men of these times could not have enjoyed.

Besides, general ideas cannot be conveyed to the mind without the assistance of words, nor can the understanding seize them without the assistance of propositions. This is one of the reasons, why mere animals cannot form such ideas, nor ever acquire the perfectibility which depends on such an operation. When a monkey leaves without the least hesitation one nut for another, are we to think he has any general idea of that kind of fruit, and that he compares these two individual bodies with his archetype notion of them? No, certainly; but the sight of one of these nuts calls back to his memory the sensations which he has received from the other; and his eyes, modified after some certain manner, give notice to his palate of the modification it is in its turn going to receive. Every general idea is purely intellectual; let the imagination tamper ever so little with it, it immediately becomes a particular idea. Endeavour to represent to yourself the image of a tree in general, you never will be able to do it; in spite of all your efforts it will appear big or little, thin or tufted, of a bright or a deep colour; and were you master to see nothing in it, but what can be seen in every tree, such a picture would no longer resemble any tree. Beings perfectly abstract are perceivable in the same manner, or are only conceivable by the assistance of speech. The definition of a triangle can alone give you a just idea of that figure: the moment you form a triangle in your mind, it is this or that particular triangle and no other, and you cannot avoid giving breadth to its lines and colour to its area. We must therefore make use of propositions; we must therefore speak to have general ideas; for the moment the imagination stops, the mind must stop too, if not assisted by speech. If therefore the first inventors could give no names to any ideas but those they had already, it follows that the first substantives could never have been anything more than proper names.

But when by means, which I cannot conceive, our new grammarians began to extend their ideas, and generalize their words, the ignorance of the inventors must have confined this method to very narrow bounds; and as they had at first too much multiplied the names of individuals for want of being acquainted with the distinctions called genus and species, they afterwards made too few genera and species for want of having considered beings in all their differences; to push the divisions far enough, they must have had more knowledge and experience than we can allow them, and have made more researches and taken more pains, than we can suppose them willing to submit to. Now if, even at this present time, we every day discover new species, which had before escaped all our observations, how many species must have escaped the notice of men, who judged of things merely from their first appearances! As to the primitive classes and the most general notions, it were superfluous to add that these they must have likewise overlooked: how, for example, could they have thought of or understood the words, matter, spirit, substance, mode, figure, motion, since even our philosophers, who for so long a time have been constantly employing these terms, can themselves scarcely understand them, and since the ideas annexed to these words being purely metaphysical, no models of them could be found in nature?

I stop at these first advances, and beseech my judges to suspend their lecture a little, in order to consider, what a great way language has still to go, in regard to the invention of physical substantives alone, (though the easiest part of language to invent,) to be able to express all the sentiments of man, to assume an invariable form, to bear being spoken in public and to influence society: I earnestly entreat them to consider how much time and knowledge must have been requisite to find out numbers, abstract words,¹² the aorists, and all the other tenses of verbs, the particles, and syntax, the method of connecting propositions and arguments, of forming all the logic of discourse. For my own part, I am so scared at the difficulties that multiply at every step, and so convinced of the almost demonstrated impossibility of languages owing their birth and establishment to means that were merely human, that I must leave to whoever may please to take it up, the task of discussing this difficult problem. "Which was the most necessary, society already formed to invent languages, or languages already invented to form society?"

But be the case of these origins ever so mysterious, we may at least infer from the little care which nature has taken to bring men together by mutual wants, and make the use of speech easy to them, how little she has done towards making them sociable, and how little she has contributed to anything which they themselves have done to become so. In fact, it is impossible to conceive, why, in this primitive state, one man should have more occasion for the assistance of another, than one monkey, or one wolf for that of another animal of the same species; or supposing that he had, what motive could induce another to assist him; or even, in this last case, how he, who wanted assistance, and he from whom it was wanted, could agree among themselves upon the conditions. Authors, I know, are continually telling us, that in this state man would have been a most miserable creature; and if it is true, as I fancy I have proved it, that he must have continued many ages without either the desire or the opportunity of emerging from such a state, this their assertion could only serve to justify a charge against nature, and not any against the being which nature had thus constituted; but, if I thoroughly understand this term miserable, it is a word, that either has no meaning, or signifies nothing, but a privation attended with pain, and a suffering state of body or soul; now I would fain know what kind of misery can be that of a free being, whose heart enjoys perfect peace, and body perfect health? And which is aptest to become insupportable to those who enjoy it, a civil or a natural life? In civil life we can scarcely meet a single person who does not complain of his existence; many even throw away as much of it as they can, and the united force of divine and human laws can hardly put bounds to this disorder. Was ever any free savage known to have been so much as tempted to complain of life, and lay violent hands on himself? Let us therefore judge with less pride on which side real misery is to be placed. Nothing, on the contrary, must have been so unhappy as savage man, dazzled by flashes of knowledge, racked by passions, and reasoning on a state different from that in which he saw himself placed. It was in consequence of a very wise Providence, that the faculties, which he potentially enjoyed, were not to develop themselves but in proportion as there offered occasions to exercise them, lest they should be superfluous or troublesome to him when he did not want them, or tardy and useless when he did. He had in his instinct alone everything requisite to live in a state of nature; in his cultivated reason he has barely what is necessary to live in a state of society.

It appears at first sight that, as there was no kind of moral relations between men in this state, nor any known duties, they could not be either good or bad, and had neither vices nor virtues, unless we take these words in a physical sense, and call vices, in the individual, the qualities which may prove detrimental to his own preservation, and virtues those which may contribute to it; in which case we should be obliged to consider him as most virtuous, who made least resistance against the simple impulses of nature. But without deviating from the usual meaning of these terms, it is proper to suspend the judgment we might form of such a situation, and be upon our guard against prejudice, till, the balance in hand, we have examined whether there are more virtues or vices among civilized men; or whether the improvement of their understanding is sufficient to compensate the damage which they mutually do to each other, in proportion as they become better informed of the services which they ought to do; or whether, upon the whole, they would not be much happier in a condition, where they had nothing to fear or to hope from each other, than in that where they had submitted to an universal subserviency, and have obliged themselves to depend for everything upon the good will of those, who do not think themselves obliged to give anything in return.

But above all things let us beware concluding with Hobbes, that man, as having no idea of goodness, must be naturally bad; that he is vicious because he does not know what virtue is; that he always refuses to do any service to those of his own species, because he believes that none is due to them; that, in virtue of that right which he justly claims to everything he wants, he foolishly looks upon himself as proprietor of the whole universe. Hobbes very plainly saw the flaws in all the modern definitions of natural right: but the consequences, which he draws from his own definition, show that it is, in the sense he understands it, equally exceptionable. This author, to argue from his own principles, should say that the state of nature, being that where the care of our own preservation interferes least with the preservation of others, was of course the most favourable to peace, and most suitable to mankind; whereas he advances the very reverse in consequence of his having injudiciously admitted, as objects of that care which savage man should take of his preservation, the satisfaction of numberless passions which are the work of society, and have rendered laws necessary. A bad man, says he, is a robust child. But this is not proving that savage man is a robust child; and though we were to grant that he was, what could this philosopher infer from such a concession? That if this man, when robust, depended on others as much as when feeble, there is no excess that he would not be guilty of. He would make nothing of striking his mother when she delayed ever so little to give him the breast; he would claw, and bite, and strangle without remorse the first of his younger brothers, that ever so accidentally jostled or otherwise disturbed him. But these are two contradictory suppositions in the state of nature, to be robust and dependent. Man is weak when dependent, and his own master before he grows robust. Hobbes did not consider that the same cause, which hinders savages from making use of their reason, as our jurisconsults pretend, hinders them at the same time from making an ill use of their faculties, as he himself pretends; so that we may say that savages are not bad, precisely because they don't know what it is to be good; for it is neither the development of the understanding, nor the curb of the law, but the calmness of their passions and their ignorance of vice that hinders them from doing ill: tanto plus in illis proficit vitiorum ignorantia, quam in his cognito virtutis. There is besides another principle that has escaped Hobbes, and which, having been given to man to moderate, on certain occasions, the blind and impetuous sallies of self-love, or the desire of self-preservation previous to the appearance of that passion,¹³ allays the ardour, with which he naturally pursues his private welfare, by an innate abhorrence to see beings suffer that resemble him. I shall not surely be contradicted, in granting to man the only natural virtue, which the most passionate detractor of human virtues could not deny him, I mean that of pity, a disposition suitable to creatures weak as we are, and liable to so many evils; a virtue so much the more universal, and withal useful to man, as it takes place in him of all manner of reflection; and so natural, that the beasts themselves sometimes give evident signs of it. Not to speak of the tenderness of mothers for their young; and of the dangers they face to screen them from danger; with what reluctance are horses known to trample upon living bodies; one animal never passes unmoved by the dead carcass of another animal of the same species: there are even some who bestow a kind of sepulture upon their dead fellows; and the mournful lowings of cattle, on their entering the slaughter-house, publish the impression made upon them by the horrible spectacle they are there struck with. It is with pleasure we see the author of the fable of the bees, forced to acknowledge man a compassionate and sensible being; and lay aside, in the example he offers to confirm it, his cold and subtle style, to place before us the pathetic picture of a man, who, with his hands tied up, is obliged to behold a beast of prey tear a child from the arms of his mother, and then with his teeth grind the tender limbs, and with his claws rend the throbbing entrails of the innocent victim. What horrible emotions must not such a spectator experience at the sight of an event which does not personally concern him? What anguish must he not suffer at his not being able to assist the fainting mother or the expiring infant?

Such is the pure motion of nature, anterior to all manner of reflection; such is the force of natural pity, which the most dissolute manners have as yet found it so difficult to extinguish, since we every day see, in our theatrical representation, those men sympathize with the unfortunate and weep at their sufferings, who, if in the tyrant's place, would aggravate the torments of their enemies. Mandeville was very sensible that men, in spite of all their morality, would never have been better than monsters, if nature had not given them pity to assist reason: but he did not perceive that from this quality alone flow all the social virtues, which he would dispute mankind the possession of. In fact, what is generosity, what clemency, what humanity, but pity applied to the weak, to the guilty, or to the human species in general? Even benevolence and friendship, if we judge right, will appear the effects of a constant pity, fixed upon a particular object: for to wish that a person may not suffer, what is it but to wish that he may be happy? Though it were true that commiseration is no more than a sentiment, which puts us in the place of him who suffers, a sentiment obscure but active in the savage, developed but dormant in civilized man, how could this notion affect the truth of what I advance, but to make it more evident. In fact, commiseration must be so much the more energetic, the more intimately the animal, that beholds any kind of distress, identifies himself with the animal that labours under it. Now it is evident that this identification must have been infinitely more perfect in the state of nature than in the state of reason. It is reason that engenders self-love, and reflection that strengthens it; it is reason that makes man shrink into himself; it is reason that makes him keep aloof from everything that can trouble or afflict him: it is philosophy that destroys his connections with other men; it is in consequence of her dictates that he mutters to himself at the sight of another in distress, You may perish for aught I care, nothing can hurt me. Nothing less than those evils, which threaten the whole species, can disturb the calm sleep of the philosopher, and force him from his bed. One man may with impunity murder another under his windows; he has nothing to do but clap his hands to his ears, argue a little with himself to hinder nature, that startles within him, from identifying him with the unhappy sufferer. Savage man wants this admirable talent; and for want of wisdom and reason, is always ready foolishly to obey the first whispers of humanity. In riots and street-brawls the populace flock together, the prudent man sneaks off. They are the dregs of the people, the poor basket and barrow-women, that part the combatants, and hinder gentle folks from cutting one another's throats.

It is therefore certain that pity is a natural sentiment, which, by moderating in every individual the activity of self-love, contributes to the mutual preservation of the whole species. It is this pity which hurries us without reflection to the assistance of those we see in distress; it is this pity which, in a state of nature, stands for laws, for manners, for virtue, with this advantage, that no one is tempted to disobey her sweet and gentle voice: it is this pity which will always hinder a robust savage from plundering a feeble child, or infirm old man, of the subsistence they have acquired with pain and difficulty, if he has but the least prospect of providing for himself by any other means: it is this pity which, instead of that sublime maxim of argumentative justice, Do to others as you would have others do to you, inspires all men with that other maxim of natural goodness a great deal less perfect, but perhaps more useful, Consult your own happiness with as little prejudice as you can to that of others. It is in a word, in this natural sentiment, rather than in fine-spun arguments, that we must look for the cause of that reluctance which every man would experience to do evil, even independently of the maxims of education. Though it may be the peculiar happiness of Socrates and other geniuses of his stamp, to reason themselves into virtue, the human species would long ago have ceased to exist, had it depended entirely for its preservation on the reasonings of the individuals that compose it.

With passions so tame, and so salutary a curb, men, rather wild than wicked, and more attentive to guard against mischief than to do any to other animals, were not exposed to any dangerous dissensions: As they kept up no manner of correspondence with each other, and were of course strangers to vanity, to respect, to esteem, to contempt; as they had no notion of what we call Meum and Tuum, nor any true idea of justice; as they considered any violence they were liable to, as an evil that could be easily repaired, and not as an injury that deserved punishment; and as they never so much as dreamed of revenge, unless perhaps mechanically and unpremeditatedly, as a dog who bites the stone that has been thrown at him; their disputes could seldom be attended with bloodshed, were they never occasioned by a more considerable stake than that of subsistence: but there is a more dangerous subject of contention, which I must not leave unnoticed.

Among the passions which ruffle the heart of man, there is one of a hot and impetuous nature, which renders the sexes necessary to each other; a terrible passion which despises all dangers, bears down all obstacles, and to which in its transports it seems proper to destroy the human species which it is destined to preserve. What must become of men abandoned to this lawless and brutal rage, without modesty, without shame, and every day disputing the objects of their passion at the expense of their blood?

We must in the first place allow that the more violent the passions, the more necessary are laws to restrain them: but besides that the disorders and the crimes, to which these passions daily give rise among us, sufficiently grove the insufficiency of laws for that purpose, we would do well to look back a little further and examine, if these evils did not spring up with the laws themselves; for at this rate, though the laws were capable of repressing these evils, it is the least that might be expected from them, seeing it is no more than stopping the progress of a mischief which they themselves have produced.

Let us begin by distinguishing between what is moral and what is physical in the passion called love. The physical part of it is that general desire which prompts the sexes to unite with each other; the moral part is that which determines that desire, and fixes it upon a particular object to the exclusion of all others, or at least gives it a greater degree of energy for this preferred object. Now it is easy to perceive that the moral part of love is a factitious sentiment, engendered by society, and cried up by the women with great care and address in order to establish their empire, and secure command to that sex which ought to obey. This sentiment, being founded on certain notions of beauty and merit which a savage is not capable of having, and upon comparisons which he is not capable of making, can scarcely exist in him: for as his mind was never in a condition to form abstract ideas of regularity and proportion, neither is his heart susceptible of sentiments of admiration and love, which, even without our perceiving it, are produced by our application of these ideas; he listens solely to the dispositions implanted in him by nature, and not to taste which he never was in a way of acquiring; and every woman answers his purpose.

Confined entirely to what is physical in love, and happy enough not to know these preferences which sharpen the appetite for it, at the same time that they increase the difficulty of satisfying such appetite, men, in a state of nature, must be subject to fewer and less violent fits of that passion, and of course there must be fewer and less violent disputes among them in consequence of it. The imagination which causes so many ravages among us, never speaks to the heart of savages, who peaceably wait for the impulses of nature, yield to these impulses without choice and with more pleasure than fury; and whose desires never outlive their necessity for the thing desired.

Nothing therefore can be more evident, than that it is society alone, which has added even to love itself as well as to all the other passions, that impetuous ardour, which so often renders it fatal to mankind; and it is so much the more ridiculous to represent savages constantly murdering each other to glut their brutality, as this opinion is diametrically opposite to experience, and the Caribbeans, the people in the world who have as yet deviated least from the state of nature, are to all intents and purposes the most peaceable in their amours, and the least subject to jealousy, though they live in a burning climate which seems always to add considerably to the activity of these passions.

As to the inductions which may be drawn, in respect to several species of animals, from the battles of the males, who in all seasons cover our poultry yards with blood, and in spring particularly cause our forests to ring again with the noise they make in disputing their females, we must begin by excluding all those species, where nature has evidently established, in the relative power of the sexes, relations different from those which exist among us: thus from the battle of cocks we can form no induction that will affect the human species. In the species, where the proportion is better observed, these battles must be owing entirely to the fewness of the females compared with the males, or, which is all one, to the exclusive intervals, during which the females constantly refuse the addresses of the males; for if the female admits the male but two months in the year, it is all the same as if the number of females were five-sixths less than what it is: now neither of these cases is applicable to the human species, where the number of females generally surpasses that of males, and where it has never been observed that, even among savages, the females had, like those of other animals, stated times of passion and indifference, Besides, among several of these animals the whole species takes fire all at once, and for some days nothing is, to be seen among them but confusion, tumult, disorder and bloodshed; a state unknown to the human species where love is never periodical. We can not therefore conclude from the battles of certain animals for the possession of their females, that the same would be the case of man in a state of nature; and though we might, as these contests do not destroy the other species, there is at least equal room to think they would not be fatal to ours; nay it is very probable that they would cause fewer ravages than they do in society, especially in those countries where, morality being as yet held in some esteem, the jealousy of lovers, and the vengeance of husbands every day produce duels, murders and even worse crimes; where the duty of an eternal fidelity serves only to propagate adultery; and the very laws of continence and honour necessarily contribute to increase dissoluteness, and multiply abortions.

Let us conclude that savage man, wandering about in the forests, without industry, without speech, without any fixed residence, an equal stranger to war and every social connection, without standing in any shape in need of his fellows, as well as without any desire of hurting them, and perhaps even without ever distinguishing them individually one from the other, subject to few passions, and finding in himself all he wants, let us, I say, conclude that savage man thus circumstanced had no knowledge or sentiment but such as are proper to that condition, that he was alone sensible of his real necessities, took notice of nothing but what it was his interest to see, and that his understanding made as little progress as his vanity. If he happened to make any discovery, he could the less communicate it as he did not even know his children. The art perished with the inventor; there was neither education nor improvement; generations succeeded generations to no purpose; and as all constantly set out from the same point, whole centuries rolled on in the rudeness and barbarity of the first age; the species was grown old, while the individual still remained in a state of childhood.

If I have enlarged so much upon the supposition of this primitive condition, it is because I thought it my duty, considering what ancient errors and inveterate prejudices I have to extirpate, to dig to the very roots, and show in a true picture of the state of nature, how much even natural inequality falls short in this state of that reality and influence which our writers ascribe to it.

In fact, we may easily perceive that among the differences, which distinguish men, several pass for natural, which are merely the work of habit and the different kinds of life adopted by men living in a social way. Thus a robust or delicate constitution, and the strength and weakness which depend on it, are oftener produced by the hardy or effeminate manner in which a man has been brought up, than by the primitive constitution of his body. It is the same thus in regard to the forces of the mind; and education not only produces a difference between those minds which are cultivated and those which are not, but even increases that which is found among the first in proportion to their culture; for let a giant and a dwarf set out in the same path, the giant at every step will acquire a new advantage over the dwarf. Now, if we compare the prodigious variety in the education and manner of living of the different orders of men in a civil state, with the simplicity and uniformity that prevails in the animal and savage life, where all the individuals make use of the same aliments, live in the same manner, and do exactly the same things, we shall easily conceive how much the difference between man and man in the state of nature must be less than in the state of society, and how much every inequality of institution must increase the natural inequalities of the human species.

But though nature in the distribution of her gifts should really affect all the preferences that are ascribed to her, what advantage could the most favoured derive from her partiality, to the prejudice of others, in a state of things, which scarce admitted any kind of relation between her pupils? Of what service can beauty be, where there is no love? What will wit avail people who don't speak, or craft those who have no affairs to transact? Authors are constantly crying out, that the strongest would oppress the weakest; but let them explain what they mean by the word oppression. One man will rule with violence, another will groan under a constant subjection to all his caprices: this is indeed precisely what I observe among us, but I don't see how it can be said of savage men, into whose heads it would be a harder matter to drive even the meaning of the words domination and servitude. One man might, indeed, seize on the fruits which another had gathered, on the game which another had killed, on the cavern which another had occupied for shelter; but how is it possible he should ever exact obedience from him, and what chains of dependence can there be among men who possess nothing? If I am driven from one tree, I have nothing to do but look out for another; if one place is made uneasy to me, what can hinder me from taking up my quarters elsewhere? But suppose I should meet a man so much superior to me in strength, and withal so wicked, so lazy and so barbarous as to oblige me to provide for his subsistence while he remains idle; he must resolve not to take his eyes from me a single moment, to bind me fast before he can take the least nap, lest I should kill him or give him the slip during his sleep: that is to say, he must expose himself voluntarily to much greater troubles than what he seeks to avoid, than any he gives me. And after all, let him abate ever so little of his vigilance; let him at some sudden noise but turn his head another way; I am already buried in the forest, my fetters are broke, and he never sees me again.

But without insisting any longer upon these details, every one must see that, as the bonds of servitude are formed merely by the mutual dependence of men one upon another and the reciprocal necessities which unite them, it is impossible for one man to enslave another, without having first reduced him to a condition in which he can not live without the enslaver's assistance; a condition which, as it does not exist in a state of nature, must leave every man his own master, and render the law of the strongest altogether vain and useless.

Having proved that the inequality, which may subsist between man and man in a state of nature, is almost imperceivable, and that it has very little influence, I must now proceed to show its origin, and trace its progress, in the successive developments of the human mind. After having showed, that perfectibility, the social virtues, and the other faculties, which natural man had received in potentia, could never be developed of themselves, that for that purpose there was a necessity for the fortuitous concurrence of several foreign causes, which might never happen, and without which he must have eternally remained in his primitive condition; I must proceed to consider and bring together the different accidents which may have perfected the human understanding by debasing the species, render a being wicked by rendering him sociable, and from so remote a term bring man at last and the world to the point in which we now see them.

I must own that, as the events I am about to describe might have happened many different ways, my choice of these I shall assign can be grounded on nothing but mere conjecture; but besides these conjectures becoming reasons, when they are not only the most probable that can be drawn from the nature of things, but the only means we can have of discovering truth, the consequences I mean to deduce from mine will not be merely conjectural, since, on the principles I have just established, it is impossible to form any other system, that would not supply me with the same results, and from which I might not draw the same conclusions.

This will authorize me to be the more concise in my reflections on the manner, in which the lapse of time makes amends for the little verisimilitude of events; on the surprising power of very trivial causes, when they act without intermission; on the impossibility there is on the one hand of destroying certain Hypotheses, if on the other we can not give them the degree of certainty which facts must be allowed to possess; on its being the business of history, when two facts are proposed, as real, to be connected by a chain of intermediate facts which are either unknown or considered as such, to furnish such facts as may actually connect them; and the business of philosophy, when history is silent, to point out similar facts which may answer the same purpose; in fine on the privilege of similitude, in regard to events, to reduce facts to a much smaller number of different classes than is generally imagined. It suffices me to offer these objects to the consideration of my judges; it suffices me to have conducted my inquiry in such a manner as to save common readers the trouble of considering them.

Notes

1. ⇮The Alterations which a long Habit of walking upon two Legs might have produced in Man's Body, the Relations still observable between his Arms and the Fore-feet of Quadrupeds, and the Induction drawn from their Manner of walking, might have given Occasion to some Doubts concerning that which must be most natural to us. Children begin by walking upon all Fours, and stand in need of both Precept and Example to hold themselves upright. There are even some savage Nations, for Instance, the Hottentots, who being very careless of their Children permit them to walk so long upon their Hands, that it is with great Difficulty they afterwards bring them to an erect Posture; this is too the Case with the Children of the West-India Savages. I could produce several Instances of Quadruped Men; among others that of the Child, which was found in 1344 in the Neighbourhood of Hesse, where he had been suckled by Wolves, and who used afterwards to say at the Court of Prince Henry, that had he his Choice, he would much rather take up with their Company again than live among Men. He had contracted the Habit of walking like those Animals to such a Degree, that it was found requisite to load him with Logs of Wood to oblige him to stand upright, and poise himself properly upon his Feet. It was the same thing with the Child, who was found in 1694 in the Forests of Lithuania and lived among Bears. He did not shew, says Monsieur de Condillac, the least Mark of Reason, walked upon Hands and Feet, had no Language but some uncouth Sounds, which had nothing common with those of other Men. The little Hanoverian Savage, which was brought several Years ago to the Court of England, had all the Difficulty in the World to bring himself to walk upon his Legs: And in 1719 two other Savages were found in the Pyrenean Mountains running about them in the Manner of Quadrupeds. As to the Objection, that by walking upon our Hands we should lose the Use of them in many other Respects in which they prove so serviceable to us; not to insist on the Practice of Monkeys, by which it is evident that the Hand may be very well employed both ways, this Argument could only prove, that Man may give his Members a more useful Destination than that assigned them by Nature, and not that Nature has destined Man to walk otherwise than she herself teaches him to walk.
   
   But there are, I imagine, much stronger Reasons to affirm that Man is a Biped. In the first Place, supposing it could be demonstrated that, tho' originally formed otherwise, he might nevertheless become in Time what he now is, would this not be enough to make us conclude that it really happened so? For, after shewing the Possibility of these Changes, it would be still necessary, in order to establish them, to shew at least some Probability of their having really happened. Moreover, allowing that Man's Arms might have served him as Legs in case of Necessity, it is the only Observation favourable to this System, whereas there are many others which contradict it. The principal are, that the Manner, in which the Head of Man is fixed to his Body, instead of giving his Eyes an horizontal Direction, such as all other Animals have it, and such as he himself has it when walking upright, would have fixed them directly upon the Earth, a Situation very unfavourable to the Preservation of Individuals; that the Tail, which Nature has not given him, and which he has no Occasion for in walking, is useful to Quadrupeds, and that not one of them is found to want it; that the Situation of the Breasts of Women, well adapted to Bipeds which hold their Children in their Arms, would be so inconvenient for Quadrupeds, that not one of them has these Parts placed in that Manner; that, our Legs and Thighs being so excessively long in proportion to the Hands and Arms that when walking on All-fours we are forced to crawl upon our Knees, the whole would have formed an ill-proportioned Animal, and very ill fitted for walking: That if such an Animal laid his Foot as well as his Hand flat on the Earth, he would have in the Hinder-Leg a Joint less than other Animals, namely, that which unites the Canon with the Tibia, and that in standing on the Tip of the Foot, as no doubt he must be obliged to do, the Tarsus, not to insist on its being composed of so many Bones, must have been too large to answer the End of the Canon: And the Articulations with the Metatarsus and Tibia too near each other to afford the Human Leg, in that Situation, the Degree of Flexibility observable in the Legs of Quadrupeds. The Example of Children being drawn from an Age in which our natural Forces are not as yet developed nor our Members confirmed in Strength, concludes nothing; and I might as well affirm that Dogs are not made to walk, because for some Days after their Birth they do no more than crawl. Nor are particular Facts of any great avail against the universal Practice of Mankind, even of those Nations, which as they have no Communication with other Nations, cannot be suspected of having copied after them. A Child deserted in a Forest before he had Strength to walk, and suckled by some Beast, must have followed the Example of his Nurse, and endeavoured to walk like her; Habit might have given him a Facility which he did not receive from Nature; and as a Man who has lost his Hands, brings himself by Dint of Exercise to do with his Feet alone every thing he formerly did with his Hands, so such deserted Child will at length acquire a Facility of employing his Hands in the Work destined for his Feet.
2. ⇮Lest any of my Readers should happen to be so little acquainted with natural Philosophy as to start Difficulties to the Supposition of this natural Fertility of the Earth, I shall endeavour to obviate them by the following Passage.
   
   

   "As Vegetables derive for their Support a great deal more Substance from the Air and Water than from the Earth, so, when they decay, they restore to the Earth more than they received from it; moreover, Forests engross great Quantities of Rain Water by stopping the Vapours that form it. Thus, in Woods that have remained untouched for a long Time, the Layer of Earth, in which the Business of Vegetation is carried on, must have received a considerable Addition. But Animals restoring to the Earth less than they derive from it, and Men consuming enormous Quantities of Vegetables for firing and other Purposes, it follows that the Layer of vegetating Earth, in well peopled Countries, must be constantly on the Decline, and become at last like the Surface of Arabia Petrea, and so many other Provinces of the East, (which in Fact is the Part of the World that was earliest inhabited) where nothing but Salt and Sand is to be found at present; for the fixed Salt of Plants and Animals stays behind, while all the other Parts become volatile, and fly off." Mr. de Buffon, Hist. Nat.

   
   
   This Theory may be confirmed by Facts, namely the great Quantity of Trees and Plants of every Kind, which covered all the desart Islands discovered in the latter Centuries, and by the immense Forests History informs us it was requisite to cut down in all Parts of the World, in proportion as they became better inhabited, and the Inhabitants became more civilized. Upon which I must add the three following Remarks. One is, that if there are any Vegetables capable of replacing the vegetable Matter consumed by Animals, according to Monsieur Buffon, they must be those Trees whose Leaves and Branches collect and appropriate to themselves the greatest Quantity of Water and Vapour. The Second, that the Destruction of the Soil, that is to say, the Loss of Substance fit for Vegetation, cannot but increase in proportion as the Earth is cultivated, and as the Inhabitants, become more industrious, consume its Productions of every Kind in greater Quantities. My third and most important Remark is, that the Fruits of Trees afford Animals a more plentiful Nourishment than they can expect from other Vegetables. This I know by my own Experience, having compared the Produce of two Pieces of Land of equal Area and Quality, one sowed with Wheat, and the other planted with Chesnut Trees.
3. ⇮Among Quadrupeds, the two most universal Distinctions of the carnivorous Tribes are deduced, one from the Figure of the Teeth, and the other from the Conformation of the Intestines. The Animals, who live upon Vegetables, have all of them blunt Teeth, like the Horse, the Ox, the Sheep, the Hare; but the carnivorous Animals have them sharp, like the Cat, the Dog, the Wolf, the Fox. And as to the Intestines, the frugivorous have some, such as the Colon, which are not to be found in the carnivorous Animals. It seems, therefore, that Man, having Teeth and Intestines like those of frugivorous Animals, should naturally be ranked in that Class; and not only anatomical Observations confirm this Opinion, but the Monuments of Antiquity greatly favour it. "Dicearchus, says St. Jerom, relates in his Books of Grecian Antiquities, that under the Reign of Saturn, when the Earth was still fertile of itself, no one eat Flesh, but all lived upon Fruits and other Vegetables, which the Earth naturally produced." (Lib. 2. Adv. Jovinian.) By this it will appear, that I give up a great many Advantages of which I might avail myself. For their Prey being almost the only Subject of Quarrel between carnivorous Animals, and the frugivorous living together in perpetual Peace and Harmony, were Men of this last kind, it is evident they would find it much more easy to subsist in a State of Nature, and have much fewer Calls and Occasions to leave it.
4. ⇮All those Branches of Knowledge, that require Reflection, are not to be attained but by a Chain of Ideas, and can only be brought to Perfection one after another, seem to be altogether beyond the Reach of savage Man, for Want of Communication with his Fellows, that is to say, for Want of an Instrument wherewith to form this Communication, and of Calls to render it necessary. All his Knowledge and Industry consists in leaping, running, fighting, throwing a Stone, climbing a Tree. But, if on the one hand he can do nothing else, he can on the other do all these Things much better than we can, who are much less beholden to such Exercises; And as Skill and Dexterity in such Exercises depends entirely on Practice, and can neither be communicated or handed down from one Individual to another, the first Man might have been every whit as expert at them as the last of his Descendents.
   
   The Relations of Travellers abound with Examples of the Strength and Vigour of Men in barbarous and savage Countries; they almost equally extol their Nimbleness and Dexterity; and as Eyes alone are sufficient to make such Observations, we may safely give Credit upon these Occasions to ocular Witnesses. I shall extract at random some Examples from the first Books that come in my way.
   
   

   "The Hottentots, says Kolben, are better Fishermen than the Europeans of the Cape. They use the Net, the Hook and the Dart, with equal Dexterity, in the Creeks on the Sea Shore and in their Rivers. They are no less expert at taking Fish with their Hands. In swimming nothing can compare with them. Their Manner of swimming has something very surprising in it, and quite peculiar to them. They swim erect with their Hands above Water, so that they seem to walk upon dry Land. In the most mountainous Seas they dance in a Manner on the Backs of the Waves, ascending and descending like a Piece of Cork."

   
   
   The Hottentots, the same Author tells us in another Place, are surprisingly dexterous at Hunting, and their Nimbleness at Running is altogether inconceiveable; and he is astonished that they do not oftener make a bad Use of their Agility; for they do it sometimes, as we may see by the following Story. "A Dutch Sailor, on his coming ashore at the Cape, ordered a Hottentot to follow him to Town with a Roll of Tobacco of about twenty Pounds Weight. When they had got to some Distance from the rest of the Company, the Hottentot asked the Sailor, Did he run well? Run well! answered the Dutchman, yes, very well. Let's see, replied the African; and scampering away with the Tobacco, he was the next Moment out of Sight. The Sailor, struck with Amazement at the surprising Fleetness of the Savage, was too wise to think of pursuing him, and never saw either his Tobacco or his Porter again."
   
   

   "Their Sight is so quick, and their Aim with the Hand so sure, that the Europeans greatly fall short of them in these Respects. At a hundred Paces Distance they will hit you with a Stone a Mark no bigger than a Half-penny; and what is still more surprising, instead of fixing their Eyes upon it, they are all the Time running to and fro, and writhing their Bodies. One would be apt to think that their Stone was carried by an invisible Hand."

   
   
   Father du Tertre says pretty much the same Thing of the West-India Savages, that we have been reading from Kolben of the Hottentots of the Cape of Good Hope: He above all cries up their Dexterity in shooting with their Arrows Birds flying, and Fishes swimming, which they afterwards take by diving for them. The North America Savages are no less famous for their Strength and Dexterity: And the following Story may help to give us an Idea of these Qualities in the South America Indians.
   
   In the Year 1746, an Indian of Buenos Ayres having been condemned to the Gallies at Cadiz, proposed to the Governor to purchase his Liberty by exposing his Life at a public Festival. He engaged to attack by himself the most furious Bull without any Weapon but a Rope, to bring him to the Ground, seize with his Rope such Part of him as he should be ordered, saddle him, bridle him, and then mounted on his Back fight two more of the most furious Bulls in the Torillo, and kill them both one after another, the Moment he should be commanded so to do, and all this without any Manner of Assistance. The Governor having accepted these Terms, the Indian was as good as his Word, and performed every thing he had promised. For the way he went about it, and the Particulars of so extraordinary an Engagement, the Reader may consult the First Volume of Observations on Natural History by Mr. Gautier, from whom I have borrowed this Account. Page xxx.
5. ⇮

   "The Length of Life in Horses, says Monsieur de Buffon, is, as in every other Species of Animals, proportionable to the length of their growing State. Man, who is fourteen Years growing, may live six or seven times as long, that is, Ninety or a Hundred Years: The Horse, whose Growth is performed in four Years, may live six or seven times as long, that is five and twenty or thirty Years. The Instances of Deviations from this Rule are so few, that they ought not to be considered as an Exception from which any Consequences can be drawn; and as large Horses reach their full Size in a much shorter Time than those of a delicate Make, so they are shorter lived, and old even at Fifteen."

6. ⇮ Methinks I see between carnivorous and frugivorous Animals another Difference still more general than that laid down in the Note (5.) since it extends even to Birds. This Difference consists in the Number of their Young, which never exceeds two at a Litter with those kinds that live upon Vegetables, but is generally greater with those of Prey. It is no hard Matter to guess the Intentions of Nature in this Respect by the Number of Teats, which is never more than two in Females of the first kind, as the Mare, the Cow, the She-Goat, the Doe, the Sheep, &c. and always six or eight in the other Females, as the Bitch, the She-Cat, the She-Wolf, the Tygress, &c. The Hen, the Goose, the Duck, which are all carnivorous Birds, as likewise the Eagle, the Sparrow-Hawk, the Owl, do likewise lay and hatch a great Number of Eggs, a Thing never known of the Pigeon, the Dove, or other Birds, which touch nothing but Grain. These seldom lay and hatch more than two Eggs at a Time. The best Reason, that can be given for this Difference, is that the Animals, who live entirely on Herbs and Plants, being obliged to spend the best Part of the Day in foraging for themselves, and requiring a great deal of Time to take their Food, it would be impossible for them to suckle many young ones; whereas those of Prey, making their Meal in a Moment or two, may oftener and more easily go and come between their Young and their Prey, and repair the Expence of so great a Quantity of Milk. I could make a great many other Observations and Reflections upon this Head, but this is not a Place for them; and it is sufficient for my Purpose that I have in this Part pointed out the most general System of Nature, a System which affords a new Reason for removing Man from the Class of carnivorous into that of frugivorous Animals.
7. ⇮ A celebrated Author, by calculating the Goods and the Evils of Human Life and comparing the two Sums, found that the last greatly exceeded the first, and that every thing considered Life to Man was no such valuable Present. I am not surprised at his Conclusions; he drew all his Arguments from the Constitution of Man in a civilized State. Had he looked back to Man in a State of Nature, it is obvious that the Result of his Enquiries would have been very different; that Man would have appeared to him subject to very few Evils but those of his own making, and that he would have acquitted Nature. It has cost us something to make ourselves so miserable. When on the one hand we consider the immense Labours of Mankind, so many Sciences brought to Perfection, so many Arts invented, so many Powers employed, so many Abysses filled up, so many Mountains levelled, so many Rocks rent to Pieces, so many Rivers made navigable, so many Tracts of Land cleared, Lakes emptied, Marshes drained, enormous Buildings raised upon the Earth, and the Sea covered with Ships and Sailors; and on the other weigh with ever so little Attention the real Advantages that have resulted from all these Works to the Human Species; we cannot help being amazed at the vast Disproportion observable between these Things, and deplore the Blindness of Man, which, to feed his foolish Pride and I don't know what vain Self-Admiration, makes him eagerly court and pursue all the Miseries he is capable of feeling, and which beneficent Nature had taken Care to keep at a Distance from him.
   
   Civilized Man is a mischievous Being; a lamentable and constant Experience renders the Proof of it unnecessary; Man, however, is naturally good; I think I have demonstrated it; what then could have depraved him to such a Degree, unless the Changes that have happened in his Constitution, his Improvements, and the Lights he has acquired. Let us cry up Human Society as much as we please, it will not be the less true that it necessarily engages Men to hate each in proportion as their Interests clash; to do each other apparent Services, and in fact heap upon each other every imaginable Mischief. What are we to think of a Commerce, in which the Interest of every Individual dictates to him Maxims diametrically opposite to those which the Interest of the Community recommends to the Body of Society; a Commerce, in which every Man finds his Account in the Misfortunes of his Neighbour? There is not, perhaps, a single Man in easy Circumstances, whose Death his greedy Heirs, nay and too often his own Children, do not secretly wish for; not a Ship at Sea, the Loss of which would not be an agreeable Piece of News for some Merchant or another; not a House, which a Debtor would not be glad to see reduced to Ashes with all the Papers in it; not a Nation, which does not rejoice at the Misfortunes of its Neighbours. It is thus we find our Advantage in the Disasters of our Fellows, and that the Loss of one Man almost always constitutes the Prosperity of another. But, what is still more dangerous, public Calamities are ever the Objects of the Hopes and Expectations of a Multitude of private Persons. Some are for Sickness, others for Mortality; these for War, those for Famine. I have seen Monsters of Men weep for Grief at the Appearance of a plentiful Season; and the great and fatal Conflagration of London, which cost so many Wretches their Lives or their Fortunes, proved, perhaps, the making of more than Ten Thousand Persons. I know that Montaigne finds fault with Demades the Athenian for having caused a Workman to be punished, who, selling his Coffins very dear, was a great Gainer by the Deaths of his Fellow Citizens: But Montaigne's Reason being, that by the same Rule every Man should be punished, it is plain that it confirms my Argument. Let us therefore look thro' our frivolous Demonstrations of Benevolence at what passes in the inmost Recesses of the Heart, and reflect on what must be that State of Things, in which Men are forced with the same Breath to caress and curse each other, and in which they are born, Enemies by Duty, and Knaves by Interest. Perhaps somebody will object that Society is so formed, that every Man gains by serving the rest. It may be so, but does he not gain still more by injuring them? There is no lawful Profit but what is greatly exceeded by what may be unlawfully made, and we always gain more by hurting our Neighbours than by doing them good. The only Objection therefore, that now remains, is the Difficulty which Malefactors find in screening themselves from Punishment, and it is to accomplish this, that the Powerful employ all their Strength, and the Weak all their Cunning.
   
   Savage Man, when he has dined, is at Peace with the whole Creation, and the Friend of all his Fellows. Does a Dispute sometimes happen about a Meal? He seldom comes to Blows without having first compared the Difficulty of conquering with that of finding a Supply in some other Place; and, as Pride has no Share in the Squabble, it ends in a few Cuffs; the Conqueror eats, the Conquered retires to seek his Fortune elsewhere, and all is quiet again. But with Man in Society the Case is quite different; in the first place, Necessaries are to be provided, and then Superfluities; Delicacies follow, and then immense Riches, and then Subjects, and then Slaves. He does not enjoy the least Relaxation; what is most extraordinary, the less natural and pressing are his Wants, the more headstrong his Passions become, and what is still worse, the greater is his Power of satisfying them; so that after a long Series of Prosperity, after having swallowed up immense Treasures and ruined Thousands, our Hero closes the Scene by cutting every Throat, 'till he at last finds himself sole Master of an empty Universe. Such is in Miniature the Moral Table, if not of Human Affairs, at least of the secret Pretensions of every civilized Heart.
   
   Compare without Prejudice the State of the Citizen with that of the Savage, and find out, if you can, how many Inlets, besides his Wickedness, his Wants, his Miseries, the former has opened to Pain and to Death. If you consider the Afflictions of the Mind which prey upon us, the violent Passions which waste and exhaust us, the excessive labours with which the Poor are overburthened, the still more dangerous Indolence, in which the Rich lie sunk, and which bring to the Grave those through Want, and these through Excess. But reflect a Moment on the monstrous Mixture, and pernicious Manner of seasoning so many Kinds of Food, the corrupt State in which they are often made use of; on the Sophistication of Medicines, the Tricks of those who sell them, the Mistakes of those who administer them, the poisonous Qualities of the Vessels in which they are prepared: but think a little seriously on the epidemical Diseases bred by bad Air among great Numbers of Men crowded together, or those occasioned by our delicate Way of living, by our alternate Transitions from the closest Parts of our Houses into the open Air, the taking or laying aside our Cloaths with too little Precaution, and by all those Conveniences which our boundless Sensuality has changed into necessary Habits, and the Neglect or Loss of which afterwards costs us our Life or our Health; set down the Conflagrations and Earthquakes, which devouring or overturning whole Cities destroy the miserable Inhabitants by Thousands; sum up in fine the Dangers with which all these Mischiefs are constantly attended; and then you will see how dearly Nature makes us pay the Contempt we have shewed for her Lessons.
   
   I shall not now repeat what I have elsewhere said of the Calamities of War; I only wish that Persons sufficiently informed for that Purpose were willing or bold enough to favour us with the Detail of the Villainies committed in Armies by the Undertakers for Victuals and Hospitals; we should then plainly discover that their monstrous Frauds, but too well known already, destroy more Soldiers than actually fall by the Sword of the Enemy, so as often to make the most gallant Armies vanish almost instantaneously from the Face of the Earth. The Number of those who every every Year perish at Sea by Famine, by the Scurvy, by Pirates, by Shipwrecks, would furnish Matter for another very shocking Calculation. Besides it is plain, that we are to place to the account of the Establishment of Property and of Course to that of Society, the Assassinations, Poisonings, Highway Robberies, and even the Punishments inflicted on the Wretches guilty of these Crimes; Punishments, it is true, requisite to prevent greater Evils, but which, by making the Murder of one Man prove the Death of two, double in fact the Loss of the Human Species. How many are the shameful Methods to prevent the Birth of Men, and cheat Nature? Either by those brutal and depraved Appetites which insult her most charming Work, Appetites which neither Savages nor mere Animals were ever acquainted with, and which in civilized Countries could only spring from a corrupt Imagination; or by those secret Abortions, the worthy Fruits of Debauch and vicious Honour; or by the Exposition or Murder of Multitudes of Children, Victims to the Poverty of their Parents, or the barbarous Bashfulness of their Mothers; or in fine by the Mutilation of those Wretches, Part of whose Existence, with that of their whole Posterity, is sacrificed to vain sing-song, or, which is still worse, the brutal Jealousy of some other Men: A Mutilation, which, in the last Case, is doubly outragious to Nature by the Treatment of those who suffer it, and by the Service to which they are condemned. But what if I undertook to shew the Human Species attacked in its very Source, and even in the holiest of all Ties, in forming which Nature is never listened to 'till Fortune has been consulted, and civil Disorder confounding all Virtue and Vice, Continency becomes a criminal Precaution, and a Refusal to give Life to Beings like one's self, an Act of Humanity: but I must not tear open the Veil which hides so many Horrors; it is enough that I have pointed out the Disease, since it is the Business of others to apply a Remedy.
   
   Let us add to this the great Number of unwholesome Trades which abridge Life, or destroy the Constitution; such as the digging and preparing of Metals and Minerals, especially Lead, Copper, Mercury, Cobalt, Arsenic, Realgar; those other dangerous Trades, which every Day kill so many Men, for Example, Tilers, Carpenters, Masons, and Quarrymen; let us, I say, unite all these Objects, and then we shall discover in the Establishment and Perfection of Societies the Reasons of that Diminution of the Species, which so many Philosophers have taken Notice of.
   
   Luxury, which nothing can prevent among Men ready to sacrifice every thing to their own Conveniency, and willing to purchase at any Rate the Respect of others, soon puts the finishing Hand to the Evils which Society had begun; and on Pretence of giving Bread to the Poor, which it should rather have avoided making, impoverishes all the rest, and sooner or later dispeoples the State.
   
   Luxury is a Remedy much worse than the Disease which it pretends to cure; or rather is in itself the worst of all Diseases, both in great and small States. To maintain those Crowds of Servants and Wretches which it never fails to create, it crushes and ruins the laborious Inhabitants of Town and Country: Not unlike those scorching South-Winds, which covering both Trees and Herbs with devouring Insects rob the useful Animals of Subsistence, and carry Famine and Death with them whereever they blow.
   
   From Society and the Luxury engendered by it, spring the liberal and mechanical Arts, Commerce, Letters, and all those Inutilities which make Industry flourish, enrich and ruin Nations. The Reasons of such Ruin are very simple. It is plain that Agriculture in its own Nature must be the least lucrative of all Arts, because the Produce of it being of the most indispensable Necessity for all Men, the Price of this Produce must be proportioned to the Faculties of the Poorest. From the same Principle it may be gathered, that in general Arts are lucrative in the inverse Ratio of their Usefulness, and that in the End the most necessary must come to be the most neglected. By which we are taught to form a Judgment of the true Advantages of Industry, and of the real Effects of its Progress.
   
   Such are the evident Causes of all the Miseries into which Opulence at length precipitates the most admired Nations. In proportion as Industry and Arts spread and flourish, the slighted Husbandman, loaded with Taxes necessary for the Support of Luxury, and condemned to spend his Life between Labour and Hunger, leaves his Fields to seek in Town the Bread he should carry there. The more our Capital Cities strike with Admiration the Eyes of the stupid Vulgar; the greater Reason is there to weep, considering what large Tracts of Land are utterly deserted, what fruitful Fields lie uncultivated, how the High-Roads are crowded with unhappy Citizens turned Beggars or Highwaymen, and doomed, sooner or later to lay down their wretched Lives on the Wheel or the Dunghill. It is thus, that while States grow rich on one hand, they grow weak, and are depopulated on the other; and the most powerful Monarchies, after innumerable Labours to enrich and thin themselves, fall at last a Prey to some poor Nation, which has yielded to the fatal Temptation of invading them, and then grows opulent and weak in its turn, 'till it is itself invaded and destroyed by some other.
   
   I wish somebody would condescend to inform us, what could have produced those Swarms of Barbarians, which during so many Ages overran Europe, Asia, and Africa? Was it to the Industry of their Arts, the Wisdom of their Laws, the Excellence of their Police they owed so prodigious an Increase? I wish our learned Men would be so kind as to tell us, why instead of multiplying to such a Degree, these fierce and brutal Men, without Sense or Science, without Restraint, without Education, did not murder each other every Minute in quarrelling for the spontaneous Productions of their Fields and Woods? Let them tell us how these Wretches could have the Assurance to look in the Face such skilful Men as we were, with so fine a Military Discipline, such excellent Codes, and such wise Laws. Why, in fine, since Society has been perfected in the Northern Climates, and so much Pains have been taken with the Inhabitants of these Countries to instruct them in their Duty to one another, and the Art of living peaceably and agreeably together, we no longer see them produce any thing like those numberless Hosts, which they formerly used to send forth. I am afraid that somebody may at last take it into his Head to answer me by saying, that truly all these great Things, namely Arts, Sciences and Laws, were very wisely invented by Men, as a salutary Plague, to prevent the too great Multiplication of Mankind, left this World, given us for our Habitation, should at length be found too little for its Inhabitants.
   
   What then? Must Societies be destroyed? Meum and Tuum abolished, and Man bury himself again in Forests among Wolves and Bears? A Consequence in the Stile of my Adversaries, which I chuse to obviate rather than permit them the Shame of drawing it. O you, by whom the Voice of Heaven has not been heard, and who allow your Species no other Lot but that of finishing in Peace this short Life; you, who can lay down in the midst of Cities your fatal Acquisitions, your turbulent Spirits, your corrupted Hearts and boundless Desires, take up again, since it is in your Power, your ancient and primitive Innocence; retire to the Woods, there to lose the Sight and Remembrance of the Crimes committed by your Cotemporaries; nor be afraid of debasing your Species, by renouncing its Improvements in order to renounce its Vices. As to Men like me, whose Passions have irretrievably destroyed their original Simplicity, who can no longer live upon Grass and Acorns, or without Laws and Magistrates; all those who were honoured in the Person of their first Parent with supernatural Lessons; those, who discover, in the Intention to give immediately to Human Actions a Morality which otherwise they must have been so long in acquiring, the Reason of a Precept indifferent in itself, and utterly inexplicable in every other System; those, in a word, who are convinced that the Divine Voice has called all Men to the Perfection and Happiness of the celestial Intelligences; all such will endeavour, by the Practice of those Virtues to which they oblige themselves in learning to distinguish them, to deserve the eternal Reward promised to their Obedience. They will respect the sacred Bonds of those Societies to which they belong; they will love their Fellows, and will serve them to the utmost of their Power; they will religiously obey the Laws, and all those who make or administer them; they will above all Things honour those good and wise Princes, who find out Means to prevent, cure, or even palliate the Crowd of Evils and Abuses always ready to overwhelm us; they will animate the Zeal of those worthy Chiefs, by shewing them without Fear or Flattery the Importance of their Task, and the Rigour of their Duties. But after all they must despise a Constitution, which cannot subsist without the Assistance of so many Men of Worth, who are oftener wanted than found; and from which, in Spite of all their Cares, there always spring more real Calamities than apparent Advantages.
8. ⇮ Among the Men we are ourselves acquainted with, or know by History, or the Relations of Travellers; some are black, some white, and some red; some wear their Hair long, some instead of Hair have nothing but a curled Wool; some are in a Manner covered all over with Hair, others have not so much as a Beard; there have been, and perhaps there are still Nations of a gigantic Size; not to insist on the Fable of the Pigmies, which perhaps is no more than an Exaggeration, it is well known that the Laplanders, and especially the Greenlanders, are greatly below the middle Stature; it is even pretended that there are whole Nations with Tails like Quadrupeds; and without blindly giving Credit to Herodotus and Ctesias, we may at least draw this very probable Opinion from their Relations, that if good Observations could have been made in these early Times, when the Manners and Customs of Nations differed more than they do at present, more striking Varieties would have likewise appeared in the Figure and Habit of their Bodies. All these Facts, of which incontestible Proofs may be easily given, can astonish those only who never consider any Objects but such as surround them, and are Strangers to the powerful Influence of different Modes of Life, Climate, Air, Food, and above all the surprizing Power of the same Causes, when acting continually on a long Succession of Generations. At present, that the Nations scattered over the Face of the Earth are better united by Trade, Travelling, and Conquest, and their Manners and Customs grow every Day more and more like each other in Consequence of a more frequent Intercourse, certain national Differences are greatly diminished. For Example, it is plain that the French are no longer those large, fair haired and fair skinned Bodies described by Latin Historians, though Time, assisted by the Mixture of Franks and Normans equally fair, should, one would imagine, have restored what the Climate, by the frequent Visits of the Romans, might have lost of its Influence over the natural Constitution and Complexion of the Inhabitants. All these Observations on the Varieties, which a thousand Causes can produce and have in fact produced in the Human Species, make me doubt if several Animals, which Travellers have taken for Beasts, for Want of examining them properly, on account of some Difference they observed in their exterior Configuration, or merely because these Animals did not speak, were not in fact true Men, (though in a savage State,) whose Race early dispersed in the Woods never had any Opportunity of developing its virtual Faculties, and had acquired no Degree of Perfection, but still remained in the primitive State of Nature. I shall give an Example to illustrate my Meaning.
   
   "There are found, says the Translator of the History of Voyages, &c. in the Kingdom of Congo, a great many of those large Animals, called Orang-Outang, in the East Indies, which form a kind of mean Rank of Beings between Men and Baboons. Battel tells us, that in the Forests of Mayomba in the Kingdom of Loango, there are two Sorts of Monsters, the largest of which are called Pongos, and the others Enjokos. The first exactly resemble Man, but are much larger and taller. Their Face is a Human one, but with very hollow Eyes. Their Hands, their Cheeks, their Ears are quite bare of Hair, all to their Eye-Brows, which are very long. The rest of their Bodies is pretty hairy, and the Hair is of a brown Colour. In short, the only thing by which they can be distinguished from the Human Species, is the Make of their Legs, which has no Calf. They walk upright, holding in their Hands the Hair of their Neck. They keep in the Woods; they sleep in Trees, where they make a kind of Roof that screens them from the Rain. They never touch the Flesh of Animals, but live upon Nuts or other wild Fruits. The Negroes, with whom it is customary, when their Way lies through Forests, to light Fires in the Night Time, observe, that as soon as they set out in the Morning, the Pongos gather about the Fire, and continue there 'till it goes out: for though these Animals are very dexterous, they have not Sense enough to keep up the Fire by supplying it with Fuel.
   
   They sometimes march in great Companies, and kill the Negroes who happen to be crossing the Forests. They even fall upon the Elephants who come to feed in the Places they haunt, and belabour these Animals so much with their naked Fists or with Sticks, that they make them roar out again, and fly to avoid their fury. The Pongos, when grown up, are never taken alive, for they are then so strong, that ten Men would not be able to master one of them. But the Negroes take several of the young ones after killing the Mother, from whose Body, they cling so fast to it, it is no easy Matter to part them. When one of these Animals dies, the rest cover his Body with a Heap of Leaves or Branches. Purchass adds, that in his Conferences with Battel he had been informed by himself that a Pongo one Day carried off from him a little Negroe, who spent a whole Month among these Animals; for they do no Harm to the Men they surprize, provided their Captives do not look at them, as the little Negroe observed. Battel has not described the second Species of Monster.
   
   Dapper confirms that the Kingdom of Congo is full of these Animals, which in the East Indies are known by the Name of Orang-Outang, that is to say, Inhabitants of the Woods, and which the Africans call Quojas-Morros. This Beast, he says, is so like a Man, that some Travellers have been silly enough to think it might be the Offspring of a Woman and a Monkey: a Chimera which the Negroes themselves laugh at. One of these Animals was brought from Congo to Holland, and presented to Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange. It was as tall as a Child of three Years, moderately corpulent, and though square-built was well-proportioned, and withal very active and lively; its Legs were strong and fleshy, the Back-part of the Body covered all over with black Hair, the Fore-part without any Hair at all. At first Sight its Face looked like that of a Man, but the Nose was flat and turned up; its Ears too resembled those of the Human Species; its Bosom, for it was a Female, was dimpled, its Navel sunk in, its Shoulders well hung, its Hands divided into Fingers and Thumbs, the Calfs of its Legs and its Heels fat and fleshy. She often walked upright on her Legs, and could raise and carry pretty heavy Burthens. When she wanted to drink, she took hold of the Lid of the Vessel with one Hand, and of the Bottom with the other, and after drinking wiped her Lips very prettily. When she laid herself down to rest, she placed her Head upon a Pillow, and covered herself with so much Dexterity, that one would have taken her for a Woman in Bed. The Negroes tell strange Stories of this Animal. They assure us that the Male not only ravishes grown up Women and young Girls, but even is not afraid to attack armed Men; in a word, there is great Reason to think that this is the Satyr of the Ancients. They are, perhaps, the Animals meant by Merolla, where he says that the Negroes, when hunting, sometimes catch wild Men and Women."
   
   Mention is likewise made in the third Tome of the same History of Voyages of these kind of antropoform Animals, by the Name of Beggos and Mandrills; but to abide by the preceding Relations, there are in the Description of these pretended Monsters very striking Conformities with the Human Species, and smaller Differences than may be pointed out between one Man and another. We cannot discover by these Passages, what Reasons the Writers had for refusing to the Animals in question the Name of wild Men; but we may easily guess, that it was on account of their Stupidity and Want of Speech; weak Arguments for those who know, that, though the Organs of Speech are natural to Man, it is otherwise with Speech itself, and are aware to what a Pitch the Perfectibility of the Human Species may have exalted civil Man above his original Condition. The small Number of Lines bestowed upon these Descriptions is sufficient to shew with what Prejudice these Animals have been seen, and how slightly they have been examined. For Example, they are represented as Monsters, and at the same Time allowed to engender. In one Place Battel says, "the Pongos kill the Negroes they meet with in the Woods;" in another Purchass adds, "they do them no Harm, even when they surprize them, provided the Negroes take Care not to look too attentively at them. The Pongos gather about the Fires lighted by the Negroes, when these have left it, and withdraw themselves in their Turn, as soon as the Fire goes out." Such is the Fact, now for the Comment upon it; "for with all their Address they have not Sense enough to keep the Fire in by supplying it with Wood." I should be glad to know by what Means Battel, or his Compiler Purchass, found out, that the Retreat of the Pongos was the Effect of Stupidity in them rather than Inclination. In a Climate like Loango, Animals cannot stand much in need of Fire, and if the Negroes make Fires, it is not so much to warm themselves as to scare and kept at a Distance the wild Beasts with which the Country swarms; it is therefore but natural that the Pongos, after having amused themselves for some Time with the Blaze, or sufficiently warmed themselves, should grow tired of standing stock still in the same Place, and return to their wild Fruits which require more Time than the Flesh of Animals. Besides it is well known that most Animals, and Man himself, are naturally indolent, and never care to trouble themselves about any thing they can any way do without. In fine, it appears very strange that the Pongos, whose Dexterity and Strength is so much cried up, who know how to bury their Dead, and make themselves Awnings with Leaves and Branches, should not know how to keep up a Wood Fire by pushing the half-burnt Sticks into it. I remember to have seen a Monkey do the very thing which Battel and Purchass will not allow the Pongos Sense to do; it is true that, my Thoughts not having as yet taken a Turn this Way, I committed myself the very Fault with which I now reproach our Travellers, and neglected examining if the Monkey's Intention was to keep in the Fire, or barely to imitate those whom he had seen doing it. Be that as it will, it is evident that the Monkey does not belong to the Human Species, not only because he wants the Faculty of Speech, but above all because his Species has not the Faculty of improving, which is the specifick Characteristic of the Human Species. But it does not appear that the same Experiments have been made with the Pongos and the Orang-Outang carefully enough to afford the same Conclusion. There is however a Method by which, if the Orang-Outang or such other Animals were of the Human Species, the most illiterate Observers might make themselves sure of it; but besides that a single Generation would not be sufficient for such an Experiment; it must be considered as impracticable, because it is necessary that what is now no more than a Supposition should be proved a Fact, before the Experiment requisite to ascertain the Reality of it could be innocently made.
   
   Hasty Conclusions, and such as are not the Fruits of a well-enlightened Reason, are apt to run to great Lengths. Our Voyagers make Beasts under the Name of Pongos, Mandrills, and Orang-Outang, of the very Beings, which the Antients exalted into Divinities under the Name of Satyrs, Fauns, and Sylvans. Perhaps more exact Enquiries will shew them to be Men. In the mean time, it appears to me as reasonable to abide by the Account of Merolla, a learned Religious, an ocular Witness, and who with all his Candour was a Man of Genius, as by that of Battel a mere Merchant, or those of Dapper, Purchass, and other mere Compilers.
   
   What are we to think such Observers would have said of the Child found in 1699, which I have already mentioned; he did not shew the least Signs of Reason, walked upon all Fours, had no Speech, and formed Sounds which resembled in nothing those of a Man: He was for a long Time, continues the Philosopher from whom I have this Fact, without being able to utter even a few Words, and what he did utter, was in a barbarous Manner. As soon as he could speak, he was questioned concerning his first Condition, but he no more remembered any thing of it, than we do of what happened to us in the Cradle. Had the Child had the Misfortune of falling into the Hands of our Travellers, they would certainly on account of his Silence and his Stupidity have turned him loose into the Woods again, or shut him up in a Monastery; and then have published very learned Relations of him, as of a very curious Beast, and not very unlike a Man.
   
   Though the Inhabitants of Europe for three or four Hundred Years past have overrun the other Parts of the World, and are constantly publishing new Collections of Voyages, I am persuaded that those of Europe are the only Men we are as yet acquainted with; nay, to judge by the ridiculous Prejudices which to this Day prevail even among Men of Letters, very few, by the pompous Title of the Study of Mankind, mean any thing more than the Study of their own Countrymen. Individuals may go and come as much as they please, Philosophy, one would imagine, remained stock still; and accordingly that of one Nation little suits another. The Reason of this is evident, at least in respect to distant Countries. There are but four Sorts of Persons, who make long Voyages; Sailors, Merchants, Soldiers, and Missionaries: Now it is scarce to be expected that the three first Sorts should make good Observers; and as to those of the last, though they were not like the rest, liable to Prejudices of Profession, we may conclude that they are too much taken up with the Duties of their sublime Vocation, to descend to Researches which seem to be merely curious, and which would interfere with the more important Labours to which they devote themselves. Besides, to preach the Gospel with Success, Zeal alone is sufficient, God gives the rest; but to study Men, Talents are requisite which God has not engaged to give any Man, and which do not always fall to the Share of Saints. We cannot open a Book of Voyages without falling upon Descriptions of Characters and Manners; but it must appear very surprizing that these Travellers, who have described so many things, say nothing that every Reader was not already very well acquainted with; and had not Sense enough to observe at the other End of the Globe more than what they might have easily seen without stirring out of their own Street; and that those real Features which distinguish Nations, and strike every judicious Eye, have almost always escaped theirs. Hence that fine Adage, so thread-worn by the Philosophers, that Men are in all Countries the same; that, as they have every where the same Passions and the same Vices, it is almost useless to endeavour to characterise the different Nations which inhabit the Earth; a way of arguing little better, in a manner, than that which should make us conclude, that it is impossible to distinguish between Peter and James, because they have both a Mouth, a Nose, and a Pair of Eyes.
   
   Shall we never again behold those happy Days, in which the common People did not intermeddle with Philosophy, but the Platos, the Thaleses, and the Pythogorases, thirsting after Knowledge, undertook the longest Voyages merely to gain Instruction, and visited the remotest Corners of the Earth to shake off the Yoke of national Prejudice, to learn to distinguish Men by the real Conformity and Difference between them, and acquire that universal Insight into Nature, which does not belong to one Age or one Country exclusive of others, but being coexistent with every Time and Place composes, as it were, the common Science of all wise Men?
   
   We admire the Magnificence of some curious Persons, who at a great Expence have travelled themselves, or sent others to the East with learned Men and Painters, to take Drawings of Ruins, or decypher Inscriptions: But I am amazed that in an Age, in which Men so much affect useful and polite Learning, there does not start up two Men perfectly united, and rich, one in Money, the other in Genius, both Lovers of Glory, and studious of Immortality, one of whom should be willing to sacrifice twenty thousand Crowns of his Fortune, and the other ten Years of his Life to make such a serious Voyage round the World, as would recommend their Names to the present and future Generations; not to confine themselves to Plants and Stones, but for once study Men and Manners; and who, after so many Ages spent in measuring and surveying the House, should at last take it into their Heads to make themselves acquainted with the Inhabitants.
   
   The Academicians, who visited the Northern Parts of Europe and the Equatorial Parts of America, did it more in Quality of Geometricians than Philosophers. However, as they were at once both Geometricians and Philosophers, we cannot consider as altogether unknown those Regions which have been seen and described by a Condamine and a Maupertuis. The Jeweller Chardin, who travelled like Plato, has left nothing unsaid concerning Persia; China seems to have been well surveyed by the Jesuits. Kempfer gives a tolerable Idea of the little he saw in Japan. Except what these Relations tell us, we know nothing of the Inhabitants of the East Indies, frequented merely by Europeans more intent upon filling their Pockets with Money than their Heads with useful Knowledge. All Africa and its numerous Inhabitants, equally singular in Point of Character and Colour, still remain unexamined; the whole Earth is covered with Nations of which we know nothing but the Names; and yet we set up for Judges of Mankind! Suppose a Montesquieu, a Buffon, a Diderot, a Duclos, a d'Alembert, a Condillac, or Men of that Stamp, engaged in a Voyage for the Instruction of their Countrymen, observing and describing with all that Attention and Exactness they are Masters of, Turky, Egypt, Barbary, the Empire of Morocco, Guinea, the Land of the Caffres, the interior Parts and eastern Shores of Africa, Malabar, the Mogul's Country, the Banks of the Ganges, the Kingdoms of Siam, Pegu and Ava, China, Tartary, and above all Japan; then in the other Hemisphere, Mexico, Peru, Chili, Terra Magellanica, not forgetting the real or imaginary Patagons, Tucuman, Paraguay if possible, Brazil, in fine the Carribee Islands, Florida, and all the Savage Countries, the most important Part of the Whole Circuit, and that which would require the greatest Care and Attention; let us suppose that these new Herculeses, at their Return from these memorable Expeditions, sat down to compose at their Leisure a natural, moral, and political History of what they had seen; we should ourselves see a new World issue from their Pens, and should thus learn to judge of our own: I say that when such Observers affirmed of one Animal, that it was a Man, and of another that it was a Beast, we might take their Word for it; but it would be the Height of Simplicity to trust in these Matters to illiterate Travellers, concerning whom one would sometimes be apt to start the very Doubt, which they take upon them to resolve concerning other Animals.
9. ⇮ This appears to me as clear as Day-Light, and I cannot conceive whence our Philosophers can derive all the Passions they attribute to natural Man. Except the bare physical Necessaries, which Nature herself requires, all our other Wants are merely the Effects of Habit, before which they were no Wants, or of our inordinate Cravings, but we don't crave for that which we are not in a Condition to know. Hence it follows that as savage Man longs for nothing but what he knows, and knows nothing but what he actually possesses or can easily acquire, nothing can be so calm as his Soul, or so confined as his Understanding.
10. ⇮I find in Locke's Civil Government an Objection, which appears to me too specious to be here dissembled. "The End, says this Philosopher, of Conjunction between Male and Female, being not barely Procreation, but the Continuation of the Species: this Conjunction between Male and Female ought to last, even after Procreation, so long as is necessary to the Nourishment and Support of the young Ones, who are to be sustained by those who got them, till they are able to shift and provide for themselves. This Rule, which the infinite wise Maker hath set to the Works of his Hands, we find the inferior Creatures steadily obey. In those viviparous Animals which feed on Grass, the Conjunction between Male and Female lasts no longer than the very Act of Copulation; because the Teat of the Dam being sufficient to nourish the Young, till it be able to feed on Grass, the Male only begets, but concerns not himself for the Female or Young, to whose Sustenance he can contribute nothing. But in Beasts of Prey the Conjunction lasts longer; because the Dam not being able well to subsist herself, and nourish her numerous Off-spring by her own Prey alone, a more laborious, as well as more dangerous way of living than by feeding on Grass; the Assistance of the Male is necessary to the Maintenance of their common Family, which cannot subsist till they are able to prey for themselves, but by the joint Care of Male and Female. The same is to be observed in all Birds (except some domestick ones, where plenty of Food excuses the Cock from feeding and taking care of the Young Brood) whose Young needing Food in the Nest, the Cock and Hen continue Mates till the Young are able to use their Wing, and provide for themselves.
    
    And herein I think lies the chief, if not the only reason, why the Male and Female in Mankind are tyed to a longer Conjunction than other Creatures, viz. Because the Female is capable of conceiving, and de facto is commonly with Child again, and brings forth to a new Birth long before the former is out of a Dependency for Support on his Parents help, and able to shift for himself, and has all the Assistance is due to him from his Parents, whereby the Father, who is bound to take care for those he hath begot, is under an Obligation to continue in Conjugal Society with the same Woman longer than other Creatures, whose Young being able to subsist of themselves, before the Time of Procreation returns again, the conjugal Bond dissolves of itself, and they are at Liberty; 'till Hymen, at his usual Anniversary Season, summons them again to chuse new Mates. Wherein one cannot but admire the Wisdom of the great Creator, who having given to Man an Ability to lay up for the future, as well as supply the present Necessity, hath made it necessary, that Society of Man and Wife should be more lasting than of Male and Female amongst other Creatures; that so their Industry might be encouraged, and their Interest better united, to make Provision, and lay up up Goods for their common Issue, which uncertain Mixture, or easy and frequent Solutions of conjugal Society would mightily disturb."
    
    The same Love of Truth, which has made me faithfully exhibit this Objection, induces me to accompany it with some Remarks, if not to refute, at least to throw some Light upon it.
    1. I must in the first place observe, that Moral Proofs are of no great Force in physical Matters, and that they rather serve to account for Facts which exist than to ascertain the real Existence of these Facts. Now this is the kind of Proof made use of by Mr. Locke in the Passage I have cited; for though it may be the Interest of the Human Species, that the Union between Man and Woman should be permanent, it does not follow that such an Union was established by Nature; otherwise Nature must be allowed to have likewise instituted Civil Society, Arts, Commerce, and every thing else pretended to be useful to Mankind.
    2. I don't know where Mr. Locke has learned, that among Animals of Prey the Society between Male and Female lasts longer than among those who live upon Grass, and that one assists the other in rearing their young ones: For we don't find that the Dog, the Cat, the Bear, or the Wolf show greater Regard to their Females than the Horse, the Ram, the Bull, the Stag, and all other Quadrupeds do to theirs. On the contrary, it seems that, if the Assistance of the Male was necessary to the Female for the Preservation of their young ones, it would be particularly so among those Animals who live upon nothing but Grass, because the Mother requires more Time to feed that Way, and is all the while obliged to neglect her Offspring, whereas the Prey of a Female Bear or Wolf is devoured in an Instant, and she has therefore, without suffering from Hunger, more Time to suckle her Litter. This Observation is confirmed by the relative Number of Teats and young ones, which distinguishes the carnivorous from the frugivorous Kinds, and of which I have already spoken in Note (8.) If this Observation is just and general, a Woman's having but two Breasts, and seldom bearing more than one Child at a Time, furnishes one Reason more, and a strong one, for doubting if the Human Species is naturally carnivorous; so that to draw Mr. Locke's Conclusion, it would seem requisite entirely to invert his Argument. There is as little Solidity in the same Distinction when applied to Birds, for who can believe the Union of Male and Female is more durable among Vultures and Ravens than among Doves. We have two Species of domestic Birds, the Duck and the Pigeon, which afford us Examples diametrically opposite to this Author's System. The Pigeon lives entirely upon Corn, and remains constantly united to his Mate, and both in common feed their young ones. The Duck, whose Voracity is notorious, takes no Notice either of his young ones or their Mother, and contributes nothing towards their Subsistence; and among Cocks and Hens, a Species scarce less ravenous, the former is never known to give himself any Trouble about Eggs or Chickens. If among other Species the Male shares with the Female the Care of feeding their young ones, it is because those Birds, not being able to fly as soon as hatched, and which the Mother cannot suckle, can much less do without the Father's Assistance than Quadrupeds, who, for some time at least, require nothing but the Mother's Nipple.
    3. There is a great Deal of Uncertainty in the principal Fact upon which Mr. Locke builds his whole Argument. For to know if, in a pure State of Nature, Woman, as he pretends, generally becomes pregnant, and brings forth a new Child a long Time before that immediately preceeding can himself supply his Wants, Experiments would be requisite, which assuredly Mr. Locke had not made, and which no one is in a Condition to make. The continual Cohabitation of Husband and Wife is so near an Occasion for the former to expose herself to a new Pregnancy, that it is hardly probable a fortuitous Concourse, or a mere Blaze of Passion should produce as frequent Effects in a pure State of Nature, as in that of conjugal Society; a Tardiness, which would contribute perhaps to render the Children more robust, and which besides might be made up by the Power of conceiving being extended to a more advanced Age with Women, who had not so much abused it in their younger Days. In regard to Children, there are many Reasons for believing that their Power and Organs develop themselves among us later than they did in the primitive State of which I speak. The original Weakness which they derive from the Constitution of their Parents, the Care taken to fold up, strain and cramp all their Members, the Softness in which they are reared, perhaps too the Use of another Woman's Milk, every thing opposes and checks in them the first Operations of Nature. The Application we oblige them to bestow in a thousand Things upon which we constantly fix their Attention, while their corporeal Faculties are left without Exercise, may likewise contribute a great deal to retard their Growth. So that if, instead of overloading and fatiguing their Minds a thousand different Ways, we permitted them to exercise their Bodies in those continual Motions, which Nature seems to require, it is probable they would be much earlier in a Condition to walk and stir about, and provide for themselves.
    
    Mr. Locke, in fine, proves at most that there may be in Man a Motive to live with the Woman when she has a Child; but he by no Means proves that there was any Necessity for his living with her before her Delivery and during the nine Months of her Pregnancy: If a pregnant Woman comes to be indifferent to the Man by whom she is pregnant during these nine Months, if she even comes to be entirely forgot by him, why should he assist her after her Delivery? Why should he help her to rear a Child, which he does not know to be his, and whose Birth he neither foresaw nor resolved to be the Author of. 'Tis evident that Mr. Locke supposes the very thing in question: For we are not enquiring why Man should continue to live with the Woman after her Delivery, but why he should continue to attach himself to her after Conception. The Appetite satisfied, Man no longer stands in need of any particular Woman, nor the Woman of any particular Man. The Man no longer troubles his Head about what has happened; perhaps he has not the least Notion of what must follow. One goes this Way, the other that, and there is little Reason to think that at the End of nine Months they should remember ever to have known each other: For this kind of Remembrance, by which one Individual gives the Preference to another for the Act of Generation, requires, as I have proved in the Text, a greater Degree of Improvement or Corruption in the Human Understanding, than Man can be supposed to have attained in the State of Animality we here speak of. Another Woman therefore may serve to satisfy the new Desires of the Man full as well as the one he has already known; and another Man in like Manner satisfy the Woman's, supposing her subject to the same Appetite during her Pregnancy, a thing which may be reasonably doubted. But if in a State of Nature, the Woman, when she has conceived, no longer feels the Passion of Love, the Obstacle to her associating with Men becomes still greater, since she no longer has any Occasion for the Man by whom she is pregnant, or any other. There is therefore no Reason on the Man's Side, for his coveting the same Woman, nor on the Woman's for her coveting the same Man. Locke's Argument therefore falls to the Ground, and all the Logick of this Phisopher has not secured him from the Mistake committed by Hobbes and others. They had to explain a Fact in the State of Nature, that is in a State in which every Man lived by himself without any Connection with other Men, and no one Man had any Motives to associate with any other, nor perhaps, which is still worse, Men in general to herd together; and it never came into their Heads to look back beyond the Times of Society, that is to say, those Times in which Men had always Motives for herding together, and in which one Man has often Motives for associating with this or that particular Man, this or that particular Woman.
11. ⇮I by no Means intend to launch out into the philosophical Reflections that may be made on the Advantages and Disadvantages of this Institution of Languages; 'tis not for Persons like me to expect Leave to attack vulgar Errors, and the lettered Mob respect their Prejudices too much to bear with Patience my pretended Paradoxes. Let us therefore let those speak in whom it has not been deemed criminal to dare sometimes take part with Reason against the Opinion of the Multitude. "Nor should we be less happy, if all these Languages, whose Multiplicity occasions so much Trouble and Confusion, were utterly abolished, and Men knew no other Method of speaking to each other but by Signs, Motions, and Gestures. Whereas Things are now come to such a Pass, that Animals, whom we generally consider as Brute and void of Reason, may be deemed much happier in this Respect, since they can more readily, and perhaps too more aptly, express their Thoughts and Feelings, without an Interpreter, than any Man living can his, especially when obliged to make Use of a foreign Language."—Is. Vossius, de Poemat. Cant. et Viribus Rythmi, p. 66.
12. ⇮Plato shewing how necessary the Ideas of discrete Quantity and its Relations are in the most trifling Arts, laughs with great Reason at the Authors of his Age who pretended that Palamedes had invented Numbers at the Siege of Troy, as if, says he, it was possible that Agamemnon should not know 'till then how many Legs he had. In fact, every one must see how impossible it was that Society and the Arts should have attained the Degree of Perfection in which they were at the Time of that famous Siege, unless Men had been acquainted with the Use of Numbers and Calculation: But the Necessity of understanding Numbers previous to the Acquisition of other Sciences does by no Means help us to account for the Invention of them; the Names of Numbers once known, it is an easy Matter to explain the Meaning of them, and excite the Ideas which these Names present; but to invent them, it was necessary, before these Ideas could be conceived, that Man should have exercised himself in considering Beings merely according to their Essence, and independently of every other Perception; an Abstraction very painful and very metaphysical, and withal not very natural, yet such, however, that without it these Ideas could never have been shifted from one Species or Genius to another, or Numbers become universal. A Savage might separately consider his Right Leg and his Left Leg, or consider them together under the indivisible Idea of a Pair, without ever thinking that he had two; for the representative Idea, which paints an Object to us, is one thing, and the numerical Idea, which determines it, another: He could still less reckon as far as five; and though on applying his Hands one to another he might observe that the Fingers exactly answered to each other, he was very far from thinking on their numerical Quality. He knew as little of the Number of his Fingers as of his Hairs; and if, after making him understand what Numbers are, some one had told him that he had as many Toes as Fingers, he would perhaps have been greatly surprized to find it true on comparing them together.
13. ⇮We must not confound Selfishness with Self-love; they are two very distinct Passions both in their Nature and in their Effects. Self-love is a natural Sentiment, which inclines every Animal to look to his own Preservation, and which, guided in Man by Reason and qualified by Pity, is productive of Humanity and Virtue. Selfishness is but a relative and factitious Sentiment, engendered in the Bosom of Society, which inclines every Individual to set a greater Value upon himself than upon any other Man, which inspires Men with all the Mischief they do to each other, and is the true Source of what we call Honour.
    
    This Position well understood, I say that Selfishness does not exist in our primitive State, in the true State of Nature; for every Man in particular considering himself as the only Spectator who observes him, as the only Being in the Universe which takes any Interest in him, as the only Judge of his own Merit, it is impossible that a Sentiment arising from Comparisons, which he is not in a Condition to make, should spring up in his Mind. For the same Reason, a Man of this kind must be a Stranger to Hatred and Spite, Passions, which the Opinion of our having received some Affront can alone excite; and as it is Contempt or an Intention to injure, and not the Injury itself that constitutes an Affront, Men who don't know how to set a Value upon themselves, or compare themselves one with another, may do each other a great deal of Mischief, as often as they can expect any Advantage by doing it, without ever affronting each other. In a word, Man seldom considering his Fellows in any other Light than he would Animals of another Species, may plunder another Man weaker than himself, or be plundered by another that is stronger, without considering these Acts of Violence otherwise than as natural Events, without the least Emotion of Insolence or Spite, and without any other Passion than Grief at his Ill, or Joy at his good Success.