Chapter 3

SECOND PART

The first man, who, after enclosing a piece of ground, took it into
his head to say, "This is mine," and found people simple enough to
believe him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes,
how many wars, how many murders, how many misfortunes and horrors,
would that man have saved the human species, who pulling up the stakes
or filling up the ditches should have cried to his fellows: Be sure
not to listen to this imposter; you are lost, if you forget that the
fruits of the earth belong equally to us all, and the earth itself to
nobody! But it is highly probable that things were now come to such a
pass, that they could not continue much longer in the same way; for as
this idea of property depends on several prior ideas which could only
spring up gradually one after another, it was not formed all at once
in the human mind: men must have made great progress; they must have
acquired a great stock of industry and knowledge, and transmitted and
increased it from age to age before they could arrive at this last
term of the state of nature. Let us therefore take up things a little
higher, and collect into one point of view, and in their most natural
order, this slow succession of events and mental improvements.

The first sentiment of man was that of his existence, his first care
that of preserving it. The productions of the earth yielded him all
the assistance he required; instinct prompted him to make use of them.
Among the various appetites, which made him at different times
experience different modes of existence, there was one that excited
him to perpetuate his species; and this blind propensity, quite void
of anything like pure love or affection, produced nothing but an act
that was merely animal. The present heat once allayed, the sexes took
no further notice of each other, and even the child ceased to have any
tie in his mother, the moment he ceased to want her assistance.

Such was the condition of infant man; such was the life of an animal
confined at first to pure sensations, and so far from harbouring any
thought of forcing her gifts from nature, that he scarcely availed
himself of those which she offered to him of her own accord. But
difficulties soon arose, and there was a necessity for learning how to
surmount them: the height of some trees, which prevented his reaching
their fruits; the competition of other animals equally fond of the
same fruits; the fierceness of many that even aimed at his life; these
were so many circumstances, which obliged him to apply to bodily
exercise. There was a necessity for becoming active, swift-footed, and
sturdy in battle. The natural arms, which are stones and the branches
of trees, soon offered themselves to his