308 ON THE NATURAL IXP^UALITY OF MEN vil 



purpose ; while, if it means that, in their poten- 

 tiality of becoming factors in any social organisa- 

 tion citizens in Rousseau's sense all men arc 

 born equal, it is probably the most astounding 

 falsity that ever was put forth by a political 

 speculator ; and that, us all students of political 

 speculation will agree, is saying a good deal for it. 

 In fact, nothing is more remarkable than the 

 wide inequality which children, even of the same 

 family, exhibit, as soon as the mental and moral 

 qualities begin to manifest themselves; which is 

 earlier than most people fancy. Every family 

 spontaneously becomes a polity. Among the 

 children, there are some who continue to be " more 

 honoured and more powerful than the rest, and to 

 make themselves obeyed " (sometimes, indeed, by 

 their elders) in virtue of nothing but their moral 

 and mental qualities. Here, " political inequality " 

 visibly dogs the heels of " natural " inequality 

 The group of children becomes a political body, a 

 civitas, with its rights of property, and its prac- 

 tical distinctions of rank and power. And all 

 this comes about neither by force nor by fraud, 

 but as the necessary consequence of the innate 

 inequalities of capability. 



Thus men are certainly not born free and equal 

 in natural qualities ; when they are born, the j in- 

 dicates " free " and "equal" in the political sense 

 are not applicable to them ; and as they develop 

 year by year, the ditl'erence.s in the politic;;! 



