Chapter 1:
Human rights and the duties they involve

In the present state of society it seems that we have to go back to first principles in search of the simplest truths, and to fight against some prevailing prejudice for every inch of ground. Let me clear my way by asking some plain questions: the answers to them will probably appear to be as obviously right as the axioms on which reasoning is based; but when they are entangled with various motives of action they are flatly contradicted by men’s words or their conduct.

•What does man’s pre-eminence over the lower animals consist in? The answer is as clear as ‘A half is less than the whole’; it consists in reason.

•What acquirement raises one being above another? We spontaneously reply: virtue.

•For what purpose were we given passions? Experience whispers the answer: so that man by struggling with his passions might achieve a degree of knowledge that the lower animals can’t have.

So the perfection of our nature and capacity for happiness must be measured by the degree of reason, virtue, and knowledge that •distinguish the individual and •direct the laws that bind society; and it is equally undeniable that, taking mankind as a whole, knowledge and virtue naturally flow from the exercise of reason.

With the rights and duties of man thus simplified, it seems hardly necessary to illustrate truths that seem so incontrovertible. But such deeply rooted prejudices have clouded reason, and such spurious qualities have taken the name of ‘virtues’, that it is necessary to track the course of reason as it has been tangled in error. . . .so that we can set the simple axiom alongside the deviations from it that circumstances bring.

Men generally seem to employ their reason to •justify prejudices that they have taken in they can’t tell how, rather than to •root them out. Only a strong mind can resolutely form its own principles; for a kind of intellectual cowardice prevails, making many men shrink from the task or do it only by halves. Yet the imperfect conclusions that are drawn in this way are often very plausible, because they are built on partial experience, on views that are correct ·as far as they go· but narrow.

Going back to first principles, vice [see Glossary] in all its native ugliness slinks away from close investigation; but shallow reasoners are always exclaiming that these arguments ·from first principles· ‘prove too much’, and that a given course of conduct is ‘expedient’ even if it is rotten at the core. Thus •expediency is continually contrasted with •simple principles, until truth is lost in a mist of words, virtue is lost in forms [= ‘in mechanical rules of conduct’], and the tempting prejudices that claim the title ‘knowledge’ suppress real knowledge.

The most wisely formed society is the one whose constitution is based on the nature of man—that statement, in the abstract, strikes every thinking being so forcibly that it looks like presumption to try to prove it; but we do need to prove it, or reason will never be able to make prescription [see Glossary] relax its grip. And yet urging prescription as an argument to justify depriving men (or women) of their natural rights is one of the absurd sophisms that daily insult common sense.

The bulk of the people of Europe are only very partially civilized. Indeed, it’s an open question whether they have acquired any virtues in exchange for the innocence ·they have lost·, comparable with the misery produced by the vices that have been plastered over unsightly ignorance, and the freedom that has been traded away in exchange for glittering slavery. The desire to dazzle by riches (the surest route to pre-eminence!), the pleasure of commanding flattering yes-men, and many other complicated low calculations of stupid self-love, have all joined forces in overwhelming the mass of mankind and making ‘liberty’ a convenient label for mock patriotism.

For while rank and titles are held to be of the utmost importance, before which genius ‘must hide its diminished head’ [quoted from Milton’s Paradise Lost], it is almost always disastrous for a nation when an able man without rank or property pushes himself into the limelight. When such a scheming obscure adventurer works to get a cardinal’s hat, longing to be ranked with princes—or above them, by seizing the triple crown ·worn by Popes·—the events involved in this bring unheard-of misery to thousands of people.

So much wretchedness has flowed from hereditary honours, riches, and monarchy, that men of lively sensibility have been reduced almost to blasphemy in their attempts to justify God’s management of the world. They have represented man as •independent of his Maker or as •a lawless planet darting from its orbit to steal the celestial fire of reason; and the vengeance of heaven. . . .punished his boldness by introducing evil into the world.

Impressed by this view of the misery and disorder that pervaded society, and weary from contending with artificial fools, Rousseau fell in love with solitude; and in his optimism he worked with uncommon eloquence to prove that man is naturally a solitary animal. Misled by his respect for the goodness of God, who certainly—for what man of sense [see Glossary] and feeling can doubt it?—gave life only in order to give happiness, he considered evil as. . . .the work of man; not aware that he was exalting one ·divine· attribute at the expense of another that is equally necessary to divine perfection. [Jean-Jacques Rousseau, mentioned many times in his work, had died fourteen years before the pressent work appeared.]

Constructed on the basis of a false hypothesis, Rousseau’s arguments in favour of a state of nature are plausible; but they are unsound, because the assertion that a state of nature is preferable to the most perfect civilization there could be is in effect a charge against supreme wisdom. The paradoxical exclamation:

•God has made all things right, and

•evil has been introduced by the creature whom God formed, knowing what he was forming

is as unphilosophical as it is impious.

The wise Being who created us and placed us here. . . .allowed it to be the case—and thus willed it to be the case—that our passions should help our reason to develop, because he could see that present evil would produce future good. Could the helpless creature whom God created out of nothing break loose from his providence and boldly learn to know good by practising evil without his permission? No. How could ·Rousseau·, that energetic advocate for immortality, argue so inconsistently? If mankind had remained for ever in the brutal state of nature, which even Rousseau’s magic pen can’t paint as a state in which a single virtue took root, it would have been clear. . . .that man was born to run the circle of life and death, and adorn God’s garden for some purpose that couldn’t easily be reconciled with his [= God’s] attributes.

But if the whole divine plan was to be crowned by rational creatures who would be allowed to rise in excellence through the use of powers given to them for that purpose; if God in his goodness thought fit to bring into existence a creature above the brutes,¹ one who could think and improve himself; why should that incalculable •gift be openly called a •curse? (A gift? Man was enabled to rise above the state in which sensations gave him the sort of comfort that lower animals are capable of; of course it was a gift!)

It might be regarded as a curse if our time in this world was the whole span of our existence; for why should the gracious fountain of life give us passions and the power of reflecting, only to embitter our days and inspire us with mistaken notions of dignity? Why would God lead us from love of ourselves to the sublime emotions aroused by the discovery of his wisdom and goodness, if these feelings weren’t launched so as to improve our nature (of which they are a part)² and enable us to enjoy a more godlike portion of happiness? Firmly convinced that no evil exists in the world that God didn’t intend to occur, I build my belief on the perfection of God.

Rousseau strains to prove that all was right originally; a crowd of authors argues that all is now right; and I claim that all will be right.

True to his first position which is nearly a state of nature, Rousseau celebrates barbarism, and in his praise of Fabricius [said to be one of the founders of ancient Rome] he forgets that the Romans in conquering the world didn’t dream of establishing their own liberty on a firm basis, or of extending the reign of virtue. Eager to support his system, he condemns as vicious [see Glossary] every effort of genius; and in praising savage virtues to the skies he raises to demigod status people who were scarcely human—the brutal Spartans, who in defiance of justice and gratitude sacrificed in cold blood the slaves who had served them well.

[In 424 BCE the Spartans murdered two thousand helots, i.e. slaves serving as soldiers in the Spartan army. Thucydides wrote: ‘The helots were invited to select those of their number who claimed to have most distinguished themselves against the enemy, so that they could be freed. The object was to test them, thinking that the first to claim freedom would be the most apt to rebel. About two thousand were selected and rejoiced in their new freedom; but the Spartans secretly killed each of them.’]

Disgusted with artificial manners and virtues, Rousseau didn’t sift through the subject but simply threw away the wheat with the chaff, not pausing to consider whether the evils that his ardent soul indignantly rejected were •consequences of civilization or •vestiges of barbarism. He saw vice trampling on virtue, and seeming-goodness taking the place of the real thing; he saw talents bent by power to sinister purposes; and he never thought of tracing the gigantic harm back to •arbitrary power, back to •the hereditary distinctions that clash with the mental superiority that naturally raises a man above his fellows. He didn’t see that it takes only a few generations for royal power to introduce idiotism into the noble family line, and that it holds out baits to make thousands idle and vicious. [MW adds harsh words about the crimes that bring people to royal status, and about the feeble passiveness of ‘millions of men’ who have let the royal criminals get away with it. She continues:]

When the chief director of a society is instructed only in how to invent crimes, or in the stupid routine of childish ceremonies, how can it not be the case that the society has a poisonous fog hovering over it? [MW’s ‘instructed in’ is ambiguous: she may mean that that’s all he is taught, or that it is all he knows.]. . . .

In circumstances as good as they could possibly be, it would still be impossible for any man to acquire enough knowledge and strength of mind to perform the duties of a king who has been entrusted with uncontrolled power. Think how knowledge and strength of mind must be violated when •the sheer fact that the man does become a king poses an insuperable bar to his acquiring either wisdom or virtue, when •all his feelings are stifled by flattery, and when •thoughtfulness is shut out by pleasure! Surely it is madness to make the fate of thousands depend on the whims of a weak fellow creature whose very position in life puts him necessarily below the poorest of his subjects! But one power should not be thrown down in order to raise up another. Man is weak, and all power intoxicates him; and the way power is misused proves that the more equality there is among men—·and thus the less power of men over men·—the more virtue and happiness will reign in society. But this. . . .raises an outcry: ‘If we don’t have absolute faith in the wisdom of aniquity, the church is in danger’ or‘. . . the state is in danger’. Those who are roused by the sight of human calamity to be so bold as to attack human authority are reviled as despisers of God and enemies of man. These are bitter libels, yet they were levelled at one of the best of men (Dr. Price), whose ashes still preach peace, and whose memory demands a respectful pause when subjects that lay so near his heart are discussed. [Richard Price, who died a year or so before the present work was published, had greatly influenced Mary Wollstonecraft. He had been reviled for his writings on the French Revolution. His Review of the Principal Questions in Morals is on the website from which the present text came.]

Now that I have attacked the ‘sacred’ majesty of kings, you won’t be surprised when I add my firm conviction that every profession whose power depends on large differences of rank is highly injurious to morality.

A standing army, for instance, is incompatible with freedom because strictness and rank are the very sinews of military discipline; and despotism is necessary to give vigour to enterprises that have one person in charge. A spirit inspired by romantic notions of honour—a kind of morality based on the fashion of the times—can be felt by only a few officers, while the main body must be moved by command, like the waves of the sea; for the strong wind of authority pushes the crowd of subalterns forward, they scarcely know or care why, with headlong fury. [Then as now, ‘subaltern’ mainly meant ‘junior officer’, so the ‘main body’ presumably refers to the main body of the officers. The rank and file are not being talked about here.]

·And armies are harmful in another way·. Nothing can damage the morals of the inhabitants of country towns as much as the occasional residence of a set of idle superficial young men whose only occupation is gallantry, and whose polished manners make vice more dangerous by concealing its ugliness under gay ornamental drapery. An air of fashion, which is really a badge of slavery, showing that the soul doesn’t have a strong individual character, awes simple country people into imitating the vices when they can’t catch the slippery graces of social polish. Every military body is a chain of despots who obey and give commands without using their reason, and become dead weights of vice and folly on the community. A man of rank or fortune whose connections guarantee that he will rise has nothing to do but to pursue some extravagant whim; while the needy gentleman who has to rise ‘by his merit’, as they say, becomes a servile parasite or a vile pander [= ‘pimp’, or perhaps merely ‘person whose job it is to satisfy his superiors’ desires’.]

Sailors, the gentlemen of the navy, can be described in similar terms, except that their vices [see Glossary] are different and grosser. They are more positively indolent [= ‘wholly idle’, ‘idly idle’] when they aren’t performing the ceremonials required by their rank, whereas the insignificant fluttering of soldiers could be called ‘active idleness’. More confined to the society of men, sailors acquire a fondness for humour and mischievous tricks; while soldiers, who are often in the company of well-bred women, are infected with a ‘sensitive’ whiny way of speaking. But whether someone indulges in ·the sailor’s· horse-laugh or ·the soldier’s· polite simper, mind is equally out of the question.

[This next paragraph refers to the Anglican church, of which MW was a member. A patron was a person, not himself a cleric, who had sole control over who became the well-paid rector or senior parson of a parish; and a curate was a junior parson who did most of the parish work and received a tiny fraction of the rector’s income.]

Let me extend the comparison to a profession where there is certainly more mind to be found—the clergy. They have better opportunities for improvement, but rank almost equally cramps their faculties. The blind submission to forms of belief that is imposed at college serves as a training for the curate who most obsequiously respects the opinion of his rector or patron—or he does if he means to rise in his profession. There can hardly be a more striking contrast than between •the servile, dependent manner of a poor curate and •the top-of-the-world manner of a bishop. And

MW’s next phrase: the respect and contempt

perhaps meaning: the little respect and great contempt

they inspire makes the work they do in their separate functions equally useless.

It is important to understand that every man’s character is to some extent formed by his profession. A man with a good mind may reflect his profession only in superficial ways that wear off as you trace his individuality; while weak, common men have hardly any character except what belongs to their profession. . . .

As society becomes more enlightened, therfore, it should be very careful not to establish bodies of men who are bound to be made foolish or vicious by the very constitution of their profession.

In society’s infancy when men were just emerging out of barbarism, chiefs and priests must have had unlimited influence because they tapped into the most powerful springs of savage conduct—hope and fear. Aristocracy is of course, naturally the first form of government. But clashing interests soon get out of balance, there is a confusion of ambitious struggles, and what emerges is a monarchy and hierarchy. . . . This appears to be the origin of monarchical and priestly power, and the dawn of civilization. But such combustible materials can’t be held down for long; and foreign wars and uprisings at home give the ·common· people a chance to acquire some power, which obliges their rulers to gloss over their oppression with a show of right. Thus as wars, agriculture, commerce, and literature expand the mind, despots are forced to use •hidden corruption to keep the power that was initially snatched by open force.³ And this •lurking gangrene is spread most quickly by luxury and superstition, the sure dregs of ambition. The idle puppet of a ·royal· court first becomes a luxurious monster or fastidious pleasure-seeker, and the contagion that his unnatural state spreads becomes the instrument of tyranny. [In this context, ‘luxury’ and its cognates refer to extreme and dissipated pursuit and enjoyment of sensual pleasures.]

It is the plague-carrying purple ·of royalty· that makes the progress of civilization a curse, and warps the understanding until men of good sense doubt whether the expansion of intellect will bring more happiness or more misery. But the nature of the poison points out the antidote; if Rousseau had climbed one step higher in his investigation—or if his eye could have pierced the foggy atmosphere that he was hardly willing to breathe—his active mind would have darted forward to contemplate •the perfection of man in the establishment of true civilization, instead of taking his ferocious flight back to •the night of sensual ignorance.

NOTES

¹ Contrary to the opinion of the anatomists, who argue by analogy from the formation of the teeth, stomach, and intestines, Rousseau denies that man is a carniverous animal. And, carried away from nature by a love of system, he questions whether man is a gregarious animal, though the long and helpless state of infancy seems to point him out as especially forced to pair, which is the first step towards herding.

² Suppose that

•you asked a mechanic to make a watch that would point out the hour of the day, and

•to show his ingenuity he added wheels and springs to make it a repeater, as a result of which the mechanism malfunctioned, and

•you complained, and

•he replied in self-defence ‘If you hadn’t touched that spring you wouldn’t have known that I had varied the plan; I would have been amusing myself by making an experiment without doing you any harm’,

what would you say? Wouldn’t you respond, fairly, ‘If you hadn’t added those needless wheels and springs, the accident couldn’t have happened?

³ Men of abilities scatter seeds that grow and have a great influence on the development of •public opinion; and once •that gets the intellectual upper hand through the exertion of reason, the overthrow of arbitrary power is not very distant.