322 ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN vn 



less, more equal than men some of whom are well 

 clothed and others in rags, though the equality is 

 of the negative sort. But it is a profound mistake 

 to imagine that, in the nomadic condition, any 

 more than in any other which has yet been 

 observed, men are either " free " or " equal " in 

 Rousseau's sense. I can call to mind no nomadic 

 nation in which women are on an equality with 

 men ; nor any in which young men are on the same 

 footing as old men ; nor any in which family 

 groups, bound together by blood ties, by their 

 mutual responsiblity for -bloodshed and by common 

 worship, do not constitute corporate political units, 

 in the sense of the city 1 of the Greeks and 

 Romans. A " state of nature " in which noble and 

 peaceful, but nude and propertyless, savages sit in 

 solitary meditation under trees, unless they are 

 dining or amusing themselves in other ways, with- 

 out cares or responsibilities of any sort, is simply 

 another figment of the unscientific imagination. 

 The only uncivilised men of whom anything is 

 really known are hampered by superstitions and 

 enslaved by conventions, as strange as those of 

 the most artificial societies, to an almost incredible 

 degree. Furthermore, I. think it may be said 

 with much confidence that the primitive " land- 



1 I may remind the reader that, in their original senses, ir<J\s 

 and civitas mean, not an aggregation of houses, but a corpor- 

 ation. In this sense, the City of London is formed by the free- 

 men of the City, with their Common Councillors, Aldermen, and f : t 

 Lord Mayor. 



