30G OX THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN vii 



erable number of new-born infants. Without wish- 

 ing to speak of them with the least disrespect a 

 thing no man can do, without, as the proverb says, 

 " fouling his own nest " I fail to understand how 

 they can be affirmed to have any political qualities 

 at all. How can it be said that these poor little 

 mortals who have not even the capacity to kick 

 to any definite end, nor indeed to do anything but 

 vaguely squirm and squall, are equal politically, 

 except as all zeros may be said to be equal ? 

 How can little creatures be said to be " free " of 

 whom not one would live for four and twenty 

 hours if it were not imprisoned by kindly hands 

 and coerced into applying its foolish wandering 

 mouth to the breast it could never find for itself ( 

 How is the being whose brain is still too pulpy to 

 hold an idea of any description to be a moral agent 

 either good or bad ? Surely it must be a joke, 

 and rather a cynical one too, to talk of the poli- 

 tical status of a new-born child ? But we may 

 carry our questions a step further. If it is mere 

 abracadabra to speak of men being bom in a state 

 of political freedom and equality, thus fallaciously 

 confusing positive equality that is to say, the 

 equality of powers with the equality of im- 

 potences ; in what conceivable, state of sori* ty is 

 it possible that men should not merely hi- horn, 

 but pass through childhood and still remain fret- > 

 Has a child of fourteen been tree to choose its 

 language and all the connotations with which 



