604 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 
to be laid for a fresh statement of the characteristics of non-social man. Whether 
the synthesis was to have a psychological or historical content was still a matter 
of uncertainty ; but, in spite of all his eccentricities, I think we may count Lafitau 
as a pioneer of a new line of work. This at least he had of the pioneer; his book 
succeeded and was much talked of ; he certainly influenced Pope and his English 
contemporaries, and in France he prepared the way for the decisive intervention 
of Montesquieu. 
Montesquieu. 
It is easy to examine in similar detail the sources of the ethnology of Montes- 
quieu, who had of course a very wide range of reading, and evidently made good 
use of his English acquaintances, and his connection with the Royal Society, to 
keep himself well posted in current English exploration. He quotes Dampier and 
the ‘Lettres Edifiantes’ repeatedly; together with Hyde’s ‘ Persia,’ Chardin’s 
‘ Persia,’ Pyrard’s ‘Turkey,’ Bernier’s ‘ Kashmire,’ Perry’s ‘Russia, Smith’s 
‘Guinea,’ Kaempfer’s ‘Japan,’ and a number of other explorers ; and he has the 
immense merit that he rises altogether superior to the current cant about Caribs 
and Hurons. I- doubt whether either name occurs more than once or twice 
throughout the ‘ Esprit des Lois.’ Montesquieu also goes far more nearly back to 
the geographical standpoint of Bodin than any of his predecessors or contempo- 
raries.' If he does not, in fact, take rank as one of the founders of synthetic 
ethnology, it,is because, like his great predecessor, he was inclined to overrate 
the influence of physical environment, and to neglect the human factor of racial 
momentum. But it is still for the future to show whether it is Montesquieu or 
the ethnologists who are in the right. 
‘ Man, as a physical being, is governed’ for Montesquieu ‘like other material 
bodies, by invariable laws. As a rational being he is constantly breaking the 
laws which God has established, and changing those which he establishes himself.’ 
He is made, that is, for a life iz society. ‘But before all these laws are those of 
nature, so called because they are derived solely from the constitution of our 
being. To understand them rightly we must consider what man was before the 
establishment of societies. The laws of nature will be those which he would 
obey in such a condition. Such a man would at first only be sensible of his 
weakness. His timidity would be extreme, and if we need experience of that, 
there have actually been found “ wild men” in the forests : they are afraid of, and 
run away from, everything. In this condition, each one feels his own inferiority ; 
at best, if at all, he feels himself an equal. He would never therefore attempt to 
attack, and peace would be the first law of nature.’ At this point Montesquieu 
quotes ‘ Wild Peter,’ to whom we must return before long, as a recent and 
notorious example of this kind of natural man. From this standpoint he goes 
on to attack Hobbes’ idea of a natural man, aggressive and domineering, and 
concludes that, just as fear drives men to fly, so signs of mutual fear would soon 
tempt them to draw nearer; not to mention the natural pleasure which any animal 
takes in the society of its kind. His four ‘ laws of nature,’ therefore, are (1) the 
sense of weakness; (2) the sense of hunger and desire to satisfy it; (8) the sense 
of mutual support; (4) the natural need of society in the sense of mere acquaint- 
ance. This last alone is purely human. 
It will be seen at once that three of these are concerned merely with the 
maintenance of an animal life, and that, so far, Montesquieu is arguing on the 
lines of a purely zoological psychology. It will also be clear that in the fourth 
‘law of nature’ he is either begging the question that man is a social animal, or 
else he is appealing to experience of actual human societies. 
Montesquieu does not leave us long in doubt which is to be his line of 
argument. In the very next chapter he argues that, ‘as soon as men are in 
association they lose the feeling of weakness; the equality which existed 
between them ceases, and the state of war begins. Each separate society comes 
to feel its strength, and this produces a state of war of nation against nation.’ 
For there must be different peoples. This last point, however, he does not attempt 
to prove. 
1 See particularly Book XIV., Of Laws in their relation with the nature of the 
Climate, where his geographical learning is most displayed. 
