The Origin Of Inequality Among Men on Superphysics

Dedication To The Republic Of Geneva

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MOST HONOURABLE, MAGNIFICENT AND SOVEREIGN LORDS, convinced that only a virtuous citizen can confer on his country honours which it can accept, I have been for thirty years past working to make myself worthy to offer you some public homage; and, this fortunate opportunity supplementing in some degree the insufficiency of my efforts, I have thought myself entitled to follow in embracing it the dictates of the zeal which inspires me, rather than the right which should have been my authorisation. Having had the happiness to be born among you, how could I reflect on the equality which nature has ordained between men, and the inequality which they have introduced, without reflecting on the profound wisdom by which both are in this State happily combined and made to coincide, in the manner that is most in conformity with natural law, and most favourable to society, to the maintenance of public order and to the happiness of individuals? In my researches after the best rules common sense can lay down for the constitution of a government, I have been so struck at finding them all in actuality in your own, that even had I not been born within your walls I should have thought it indispensable for me to offer this picture of human society to that people, which of all others seems to be possessed of its greatest advantages, and to have best guarded against its abuses.

Introduction

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There are 2 kinds of inequality among the human species:

The Natural State of Man

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I will not analyze the natural state of man based on anatomy.

Comparative anatomy has as yet made too little progress. The observations of naturalists are too uncertain, to afford an adequate basis for any solid reasoning.

Savage Man

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In the operations of the brute, nature is the sole agent, whereas man has some share in his own operations, in his character as a free agent.

We Must Always Go Back To A First Convention

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The first man who enclosed a piece of ground thought himself: “This is mine”.

He found people simple enough to believe him.

He was the real founder of civil society.

Preface

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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.

The Good and Evil of Life

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A famous author compared the total good and evil of human life. He found that our pains greatly exceed our pleasures. All things considered, human life is not at all a valuable gift.

Luxury is the greatest of all evils

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Shameful methods are sometimes practised to prevent the birth of men, and cheat nature such as by:

secret abortions
the exposure or murder of infants, who fall victims to the poverty of their parents
the mutilation of unhappy wretches, part of whose life, with their hope of posterity, is given up to vain singing

How many talents have not been thrown away, and inclinations forced, by the unwise constraint of fathers?