ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN. 765 



essay was not meant to be taken seriously, or that it has been, in 

 some respects, more or less set aside by the later, he might find 

 strong grounds for his opinion. It is enough for me that the 

 same a priori method and the same fallacious assumptions per- 

 vade both. 



The thesis of the earlier work is that man, in the " state of 

 nature," was a very excellent creature indeed, strong, healthy, 

 good, and contented ; and all the evils which have befallen him, 

 such as feebleness, sickness, wickedness, and misery, result from 

 his having forsaken the " state of nature " for the " state of civili- 

 zation." And the first step in this downward progress was the 

 setting up of rights of several property. It might seem to a plain 

 man that the argument here turns on a matter of fact : if it is not 

 historically true that men were once in this "state of nature" 

 what becomes of it all ? However, Rousseau tells us, in the pref- 

 ace to the " Discours," not only that the " state of nature " is 

 something which no longer exists, but that " perhaps it never ex- 

 isted, and probably never will exist." Yet it is something " of 

 which it is nevertheless necessary to have accurate notions in 

 order to judge our present conditions rightly." After making 

 this singular statement, Rousseau goes on to observe : " II faudrait 

 meme plus de philosophie qu'on ne pense a celui qui entrepren- 

 drait de determiner exactement les precautions a prendre pour 

 faire sur ce sujet de solides observations." (More philosophy in- 

 deed is needed than one thinks for him who undertakes to deter- 

 mine exactly the precautions to be taken to make solid observa- 

 tions on this subject.) And, certainly, the amount of philosophy 

 required to base an argument on that which does not exist, has not 

 existed, and perhaps never will exist, may well seem unattainable 

 at any rate, at first sight. Yet, apart from analogies which 

 might be drawn from the mathematical sciences where, for ex- 

 ample, a straight line is a thing which has not existed, does not 

 exist, and probably never will exist, and yet forms a good ground 

 for reasoning ; and the value of which I need not stop to discuss 

 I take it that Rousseau has a very comprehensible idea at the 

 bottom of this troublesome statement. "What I conceive him to 

 mean is that it is possible to form an ideal conception of what 

 ought to be the condition of mankind ; * and that, having done 

 so, we are bound to judge the existing state of things by that 



* Compare " Ancient Law " : " The Law of Nature confused the Past and the Present. 

 Logically, it implied a state of Nature which had once been regulated by Natural Law ; 

 yet the jurisconsults do not speak clearly or confidently of the existence of such a state " 

 (p. 73). " There are some writers on the subject who attempt to evade the fundamental 

 difficulty by contending that the code of Nature exists in the future and is the goal to 

 which all civil laws are moving " (p. 74). The jurisconsults conceived of Natural Law " as 

 a system which ought gradually to absorb Civil Laws " (p. 76). " Its functions were, in 

 short, remedial, not revolutionary or anarchical. And this unfortunately is the exact point 



