ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN. 771 



nomads. But among a body of naked, wandering savages, though, 

 there may be no verbally recognized distinctions of rank or office, 

 superior strength and cunning confer authority of a more valid 

 kind than that secured by acts of Parliament ; there may be no 

 property in things, but the witless man will be poverty-stricken 

 in ideas, the clever man will be a capitalist in that same commod- 

 ity, which in the long run buys all other commodities ; one will 

 miss opportunities, the others will make them ; and, proclaim hu- 

 man equality as loudly as you like, Witless will serve his brother. 

 So long as men are men and society is society, human equality 

 will be a dream ; and the assumption that it does exist is as un- 

 true in fact as it sets the mark of impracticability on every theory 

 of what ought to be, which starts from it. 



And that last remark suggests that there is another way of re- 

 garding Rousseau's speculations. It may be pointed out that, 

 after all, whatever estimate we may form of him, the author of 

 works which have made such a noise in the world could not have 

 been a mere fool ; and that if, in their plain and obvious sense, the 

 doctrines which he advanced are so easily upset, it is probable that 

 he had in his mind something which is different from that sense. 



I am a good deal disposed to think that this is the case. There 

 is much to be said in favor of the view that Rousseau, having got 

 hold of a plausible hypothesis, more or less unconsciously made up 

 a clothing of imaginary facts to hide its real nakedness. He was 

 not the first nor the last philosopher to perform this feat. 



As soon as men began to think about political problems, it 

 must have struck them that, if the main object of society was the 

 welfare of its members (and until this became clear, political ac- 

 tion could not have risen above the level of instinct),* there were 

 all sorts of distinctions among men, and burdens laid upon them, 

 which nowise contributed to that end. Even before the great lev- 

 eler, Rome, had actually thrown down innumerable social and 

 national party-walls, had absorbed all other forms of citizenship 

 into her own, and brought the inhabitants of what was then 

 known as the world under one system of obligations thoughtful 



* It is not to be forgotten that what we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often ex- 

 tremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts. I can not doubt that human society 

 existed before language or any ethical consciousness. Gregarious animals form polities in 

 which they act according to rules conducive to the welfare of the whole society, although, 

 of course, it would be absurd to say that they obey laws in the juridical sense. The polities 

 of the masterless dogs in Eastern cities are well known. And, in any street of an English 

 town, one may observe a small dog chased by a bigger, who turns round the moment he has 

 entered his own territory and defies the other ; while, usually, after various manifestations 

 of anger and contempt, the bigger withdraws. No doubt the small dog has had previous 

 experience of the arrival of assistance under such circumstances, and the big one of the 

 effects of sticks and stones and other odd missiles ; no doubt the associations thus ingrained 

 are the prime source of the practical acknowledgment of ownership on both sides. I sus- 

 pect it has been very much the same among men. 



