A DISSERTATION ON THE ORIGIN AND FOUNDATION OF THE INEQUALITY OF MANKIND PREFACE |
OF all human sciences the most useful and most imperfect
appears to me to be that of mankind: and I will venture to say, the single
inscription on the Temple of Delphi contained a precept more difficult
and more important than is to be found in all the huge volumes that moralists
have ever written. I consider the subject of the following discourse as
one of the most interesting questions philosophy can propose, and unhappily
for us, one of the most thorny that philosophers can have to solve. For
how shall we know the source of inequality between men, if we do not begin
by knowing mankind? And how shall man hope to see himself as nature made
him, across all the changes which the succession of place and time must
have produced in his original constitution? How can he distinguish what
is fundamental in his nature from the changes and additions which his
circumstances and the advances he has made have introduced to modify his
primitive condition? Like the statue of Glaucus, which was so disfigured
by time, seas and tempests, that it looked more like a wild beast than
a god, the human soul, altered in society by a thousand causes perpetually
recurring, by the acquisition of a multitude of truths and errors, by
the changes happening to the constitution of the body, and by the continual
jarring of the passions, has, so to speak, changed in appearance, so as
to be hardly recognisable. Instead of a being, acting constantly from
fixed and invariable principles, instead of that celestial and majestic
simplicity, impressed on it by its divine Author, we find in it only the
frightful contrast of passion mistaking itself for reason, and of understanding
grown delirious. |
.
.It is still more cruel that, as every advance made by the human
species removes it still farther from its primitive state, the more discoveries
we make, the more we deprive ourselves of the means of making the most
important of all. Thus it is, in one sense, by our very study of man,
that the knowledge of him is put out of our power. |
.
.It is easy to perceive that it is in these successive changes
in the constitution of man that we must look for the origin of those differences
which now distinguish men, who, it is allowed, are as equal among themselves
as were the animals of every kind, before physical causes had introduced
those varieties which are now observable among some of them. |
.
.It is, in fact, not to be conceived that these primary changes,
however they may have arisen, could have altered, all at once and in the
same manner, every individual of the species. It is natural to think that,
while the condition of some of them grew better or worse, and they were
acquiring various good or bad qualities not inherent in their nature,
there were others who continued a longer time in their original condition.
Such was doubtless the first source of the inequality of mankind, which
it is much easier to point out thus in general terms, than to assign with
precision to its actual causes. |
.
.Let not my readers therefore imagine that I flatter myself with
having seen what it appears to me so difficult to discover. I have here
entered upon certain arguments, and risked some conjectures, less in the
hope of solving the difficulty, than with a view to throwing some light
upon it, and reducing the question to its proper form. Others may easily
proceed farther on the same road, and yet no one find it very easy to
get to the end. For it is by no means a light undertaking to distinguish
properly between what is original and what is artificial in the actual
nature of man, or to form a true idea of a state which no longer exists,
perhaps never did exist, and probably never will exist; and of which,
it is, nevertheless, necessary to have true ideas, in order to form a
proper judgment of our present state. It requires, indeed, more philosophy
than can be imagined to enable any one to determine exactly what precautions
he ought to take, in order to make solid observations on this subject;
and it appears to me that a good solution of the following problem would
be not unworthy of the Aristotles and Plinys of the present age. What
experiments would have to be made, to discover the natural man? And how
are those experiments to be made in a state of society? |
.
.So far am I from undertaking to solve this problem, that I think
I have sufficiently considered the subject, to venture to declare beforehand
that our greatest philosophers would not be too good to direct such experiments,
and our most powerful sovereigns to make them. Such a combination we have
very little reason to expect, especially attended with the perseverance,
or rather succession of intelligence and goodwill necessary on both sides
to success. |
.
.These investigations, which are so difficult to make, and have
been hitherto so little thought of, are, nevertheless, the only means
that remain of obviating a multitude of difficulties which deprive us
of the knowledge of the real foundations of human society. It is this
ignorance of the nature of man, which casts so much uncertainty and obscurity
on the true definition of natural right: for, the idea of right, says
Burlamaqui, and more particularly that of natural right, are ideas manifestly
relative to the nature of man. It is then from this very nature itself,
he goes on, from the constitution and state of man, that we must deduce
the first principles of this science. |
.
.We cannot see without surprise and disgust how little agreement
there is between the different authors who have treated this great subject.
Among the more important writers there are scarcely two of the same mind
about it. Not to speak of the ancient philosophers, who seem to have done
their best purposely to contradict one another on the most fundamental
principles, the Roman jurists subjected man and the other animals indiscriminately
to the same natural law, because they considered, under that name, rather
the law which nature imposes on herself than that which she prescribes
to others; or rather because of the particular acceptation of the term
law among those jurists; who seem on this occasion to have understood
nothing more by it than the general relations established by nature between
all animated beings, for their common preservation. The moderns, understanding,
by the term law, merely a rule prescribed to a moral being, that is to
say intelligent, free and considered in his relations to other beings,
consequently confine the jurisdiction of natural law to man, as the only
animal endowed with reason. But, defining this law, each after his own
fashion, they have established it on such metaphysical principles, that
there are very few persons among us capable of comprehending them, much
less of discovering them for themselves. So that the definitions of these
learned men, all differing in everything else, agree only in this, that
it is impossible to comprehend the law of nature, and consequently to
obey it, without being a very subtle casuist and a profound metaphysician.
All which is as much as to say that mankind must have employed, in the
establishment of society, a capacity which is acquired only with great
difficulty, and by very few persons, even in a state of society. |
.
.Knowing so little of nature, and agreeing so ill about the meaning
of the word law, it would be difficult for us to fix on a good definition
of natural law. Thus all the definitions we meet with in books, setting
aside their defect in point of uniformity, have yet another fault, in
that they are derived from many kinds of knowledge, which men do not possess
naturally, and from advantages of which they can have no idea until they
have already departed from that state. Modern writers begin by inquiring
what rules it would be expedient for men to agree on for their common
interest, and then give the name of natural law to a collection of these
rules, without any other proof than the good that would result from their
being universally practised. This is undoubtedly a simple way of making
definitions, and of explaining the nature of things by almost arbitrary
conveniences. |
.
.But as long as we are ignorant of the natural man, it is in vain
for us to attempt to determine either the law originally prescribed to
him, or that which is best adapted to his constitution. All we can know
with any certainty respecting this law is that, if it is to be a law,
not only the wills of those it obliges must be sensible of their submission
to it; but also, to be natural, it must come directly from the voice of
nature. |
.
.Throwing aside, therefore, all those scientific books, which teach
us only to see men such as they have made themselves, and contemplating
the first and most simple operations of the human soul, I think I can
perceive in it two principles prior to reason, one of them deeply interesting
us in our own welfare and preservation, and the other exciting a natural
repugnance at seeing any other sensible being, and particularly any of
our own species, suffer pain or death. It is from the agreement and combination
which the understanding is in a position to establish between these two
principles, without its being necessary to introduce that of sociability,
that all the rules of natural right appear to me to be derived — rules
which our reason is afterwards obliged to establish on other foundations,
when by its successive developments it has been led to suppress nature
itself. |
.
.In proceeding thus, we shall not be obliged to make man a philosopher
before he is a man. His duties toward others are not dictated to him only
by the later lessons of wisdom; and, so long as he does not resist the
internal impulse of compassion, he will never hurt any other man, nor
even any sentient being, except on those lawful occasions on which his
own preservation is concerned and he is obliged to give himself the preference.
By this method also we put an end to the time-honoured disputes concerning
the participation of animals in natural law: for it is clear that, being
destitute of intelligence and liberty, they cannot recognise that law;
as they partake, however, in some measure of our nature, in consequence
of the sensibility with which they are endowed, they ought to partake
of natural right; so that mankind is subjected to a kind of obligation
even toward the brutes. It appears, in fact, that if I am bound to do
no injury to my fellow-creatures, this is less because they are rational
than because they are sentient beings: and this quality, being common
both to men and beasts, ought to entitle the latter at least to the privilege
of not being wantonly ill-treated by the former. |
.
.The very study of the original man, of his real wants, and the
fundamental principles of his duty, is besides the only proper method
we can adopt to obviate all the difficulties which the origin of moral
inequality presents, on the true foundations of the body politic, on the
reciprocal rights of its members, and on many other similar topics equally
important and obscure. |
.
.If
we look at human society with a calm and disinterested eye, it seems,
at first, to show us only the violence of the powerful and the oppression
of the weak. The mind is shocked at the cruelty of the one, or is induced
to lament the blindness of the other; and as nothing is less permanent
in life than those external relations, which are more frequently produced
by accident than wisdom, and which are called weakness or power, riches
or poverty, all human institutions seem at first glance to be founded
merely on banks of shifting sand. It is only by taking a closer look,
and removing the dust and sand that surround the edifice, that we perceive
the immovable basis on which it is raised, and learn to respect its foundations.
Now, without a serious study of man, his natural faculties and their successive
development, we shall never be able to make these necessary distinctions,
or to separate, in the actual constitution of things, that which is the
effect of the divine will, from the innovations attempted by human art.
The political and moral investigations, therefore, to which the important
question before us leads, are in every respect useful; while the hypothetical
history of governments affords a lesson equally instructive to mankind. |
.
.In
considering what we should have become, had we been left to ourselves,
we should learn to bless Him, whose gracious hand, correcting our institutions,
and giving them an immovable basis, has prevented those disorders which
would otherwise have arisen from them, and caused our happiness to come
from those very sources which seemed likely to involve us in misery. |
Jean-Jacques
Rouseau 1712-78 |
There
is more than one statue of Glaucus in Delphi.... T.A. |