ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN 761 

 ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN. 



By Prof. T. H. HUXLEY, F. K. S. 



THE political speculations set forth in Rousseau's "Discours 

 sur l'origine de l'ine'galite' parmi les hommes," and in the 

 more noted essay, " Du Contrat Social," which were published, 

 the former in 1754 and the latter eight years later, are, for the 

 most part, if not wholly, founded upon conceptions with the origi- 

 nation of which he had nothing to do. The political, like the 

 religious, revolutionary movement of the eighteenth century in 

 France came from England. Hobbes, primarily, and Locke, sec- 

 ondarily (Rousseau was acquainted with the writings of both), 

 supplied every notion of fundamental importance which is to be 

 found in the works which I have mentioned. But the skill of a 

 master of the literary art and the fervor of a prophet combined 

 to embellish and intensify the new presentation of old specula- 

 tions ; which had the further good fortune to address itself to a 

 public as ripe and ready as Balak himself to accept the revelations 

 of any seer whose prophecies were to its mind. 



Missionaries, whether of philosophy or of religion, rarely make 

 rapid way, unless their preachings fall in with the prepossessions 

 of the multitude of shallow thinkers, or can be made to serve as a 

 stalking-horse for the promotion of the practical aims of the still 

 larger multitude, who do not profess to think much, but are quite 

 certain they want a great deal. Rousseau's writings are so admi- 

 rably adapted to touch both these classes that the effect they 

 produced, especially in France, is easily intelligible. For, in the 

 middle of the eighteenth century, French society (not perhaps so 

 different as may be imagined from other societies before and 

 since) presented two large groups of people who troubled them- 

 selves about politics in any sense other than that of personal or 

 party intrigue. There was an upper stratum of luxurious idlers, 

 jealously excluded from political action and consequently ignorant 

 of practical affairs, with no solid knowledge or firm principles of 

 any sort ; but, on the other hand, open-minded to every novelty 

 which could be apprehended without too much trouble, and exqui- 

 sitely appreciative of close deductive reasoning and clear expo- 

 sition. Such a public naturally welcomed Rousseau's brilliant 

 developments of plausible first principles by the help of that 

 a priori method which saves so much troublesome investigation.* 



* In his famous work on " Ancient Law " the late Sir Henry Maine has remarked, with 

 great justice, that Rousseau's philosophy " still possesses singular fascination for the looser 

 thinkers of every country " ; that " it helped most powerfully to bring about the grosser 

 disappointments of which the first French Revolution was fertile," and that "it gave birth, 

 or intense stimulus, to the vices of mental habit all but universal at the time, disdain of 



