prefumed that his readers were as intimately acquainted, as he was himself, with the principles that formed the bafis of his whole fyftem; which was confequently obfcure, if not unintelligible, to a great part of the public, whofe attention had not been turned to fubjects of this nature. In the present volume, he guards against fuch a defect, and goes into a minute detail of the grounds on which the whole of his arguments refts; indeed it is fo very minute, that he himself fears it may be called puerile: but on the other hand it is attended with this advantage, that it makes the elements of his principles fo clear, that even an ordinary capacity may be able with facility to understand them. To this part of his plan he devotes no inconfiderable portion of the work, for his Preliminary Notions' occupy the fpace between page 12 and page 93.

Before he ftates how fociety fhould be maintained, the Marquis thinks it neceffary to inquire by what means it first was formed; thus taking up the bufinefs ab ovo.. Some theorists, he obferves, have fuppofed fociety to have originated in force; while others have pronounced it to be the offspring of reason, and the creature of compact. Our author cares not which sys tem is adopted, as the principles which he lays down do not depend on either of them feparately and diftinctly: For, (fays he,) in whichever of the two Society may have originated, a time comes when reafon must call in force to its aid, or force must apply to reason for fupport: it would be dangerous then to truft to either of them, without a certainty of the co-operation of the other..

·

He fuppofes the primitive ftate of man to be feemingly the most oppofite to every hope of affociation, because even in fuch a ftate he finds reafons that neceffarily lead to the promotion of fociety; and he divides what he calls his theoretic romance into feven eras, because he is of opinion that the confideration of each of them feparately, and without any regard whatever to the fucceeding one, will be fufficient to give the folution of the problems which moft effentially interest social order, and will remove every doubt relative to the true intereft, that is to fay, the respective duties and rights of the different members of fociety, when it is arrived at that state in which it exifts at present in the world.

In his first era, or stage of fociety, he points out the manner in which fixed or real property was acquired and improved; thence deducing the title which man has in reafon as well as law to fuch acquifitions.

The pretended state of nature is that in which the rights of man have no other bounds than his ftrength and his appetites.-The fate of fociety is that in which the exercife of the faculties, that we have

received

received from nature, and the ufe of every thing that we have acquired or might acquire through them, are limited by law, where its voice is heard, and by confcience when the law is filent. Law has external characters which make it known to those who knew it not before, and recall it to the memory of those who had forgotten it. Confcience is that kind of moral inftinet, of which man alone appears to be fufceptible, and which more advantageoufly diftinguishes him from all other animals; it is that fecret voice which speaks only to his heart, and too often against his will, when the intereft of another perfon ftands in the way of any of his defires, and when there exists no pofitive law that tells him in what he may then indulge, and from what he ought to refrain.'

Nothing, in the author's opinion, can be more erroneous than to contraft this latter ftate with that of nature; as it is beyond a doubt that from nature we derive that irresistible inclination which draws us towards each other, and that understanding and perfectibility which are conftantly on the fearch for, and fooner or later difcover, and at length adopt, the means most capable of remedying the inconveniencies infeparable from every species of human affociation, and the laws moft proper for multiplying and fecuring the advantages neceffarily attached to fociety.

Nevertheless, I will fuppofe this pretended state of nature, and I would ask the good Rouffeau himself, after the intoxication of his first literary fucceffes had a little fubfided, what reafon could have induced man to renounce that ftate, the charms of which were fo admirably represented to him by his brilliant imagination; what reafon?—The dreadful neceffity of being always in arms either to feize what he had not, or to defend what he had;-the agitation, or rather the burning fever infeparable from that dreadful neceffity;-the conftant fear that was felt by any one who believed that he did not alone poffefs firength fuperior to that of all the other men by whom he faw himself furrounded;-the defire and the facility of freeing himself, in those early times, from thefe diftreffing inquietudes, the prolongation of which would have rendered the condition of man a hundred times more deplorable than that of the brute beafts, whose inferiority to himself, after all is faid and done, he very foon discovered. The first who then began to reafon on the fubject thus faid to himself: "I will fly from those monsters endowed like myself with a human form, but who make use of their reafon only the better to fecure their prey, or of their firength only to fubject their weaker fellow-creatures to their brutality, or to butcher them. I will fearch for an afylum from their attacks, their craft, their perfidy. I will make choice of the vileft and most remote retreat; for in fuch only fhall I live in peace. I will make it impenetrable to every thing that I would wish to keep out of it, inacceffible to all thofe who might be capable of difturbing my tranquillity, difputing my pleasures, or interrupting my labour,-that labour which can fo eafily fatisfy all the wants that ferve as pretexts for their ferocity. I will find fuch an afylum; I will lead to it my wife, whom these monsters so often endeavoured to tear from me, and to whom I am indebted for the only moments of my life in which I have

not

not deplored my exilence as a misfortune: I will carry with me my two children whom I feed now, and who will feed me in my old age, as I have fed thofe who did the fame for me when I was a child; thefe two children, whom the monfters were going to butcher as they butchered my father; I will tell them of the danger to which they are expofed; I will tell them what I did to fnatch them from it, and what they ought to do, in order not to be expofed any more to the like horrors. During their infancy, they fall fee me cultivate the land, where I fhall have placed them in fafety, where the fakes, the pales, the intrenchments with which I fhall have fortified it, will guard their lives together with my own and that of my wife; they will foon be able to join us in tilling the earth which will be our common fupport; and until then I fall not be afraid that any others befides themselves fhall partake in the produce of our labour."

Let us now fuppofe that thefe ftakes, thefe pales, thefe intrenchments, acknowledged to be neceffary to the execution of the very reasonable project of the man in a complete ftate of nature of whom I have been fpeaking,--and which, it feems, the good Rouffeau would have immediately pulled up,-had efcaped the fearch or refifted the attacks of the robbers against whom this poor man wished to fecure himself; I afk whether, in the eyes of any other than a robber, these stakes, pales, and intrenchments did not prove that he had taken poffeffion of this wild uncultivated spot; and did not point out to any other than a robber the neceffity of locking for a piece of ground fomewhere elfe, and purfuing a fimilar plan of operations on it, if he were really tired of the life of a plunderer?-1 afk whether the labour, of which this ground exhibited the marks, did not prove the property of it to be in the hands of him who had fortified, defended, and put it in a ftate of cultivation ?—I ask whether this right of property does not include that of tranfmitting it? In a word, I ask whether, after a certain known and fixed period, it would not be as abfurd as it would be iniquitous to require from the poffeffor of the land any other title to the property, than an uninterrupted poffeffion up to that momert?-Let us not look elfewhere for the origin of PROPERTY, the only immutable bafis, as well as indijpenfable fupport of the fecial edifice-but let us confider what it offers to the mind at the very outlet.

The firft obfervation that prefents itself is the accumulation of the labour of feveral years, fuch as ditches, palings, cabins, plantations, &c. an accumulation evidently neceffary to facilitate and fecure for each fucceeding year the quantity of produce, which could not be expected, except after the lapfe of many other years, without this accumulation of anterior labours.

The fecond obfervation is, that thefe anterior labours increase the value of the land, that they ought to be rewarded with a portion of its produce, and that in this point of view they reprefent a fecond capital.

Thirdly, that it is impoffible every year to derive an advantage from anterior labours, which, in the hand of the owner of the foil, is confounded with the capital of the land, without the afhftance of a third capital, a capital of annual labour, without which there would not be a conftant reproduction.

In the cafe which I have fuppofed, it is evident that the owner of the foil unites in his own perfon all the three forts of capitals that I have described,

defcribed, and that he alone is entitled to the whole produce arifing from them: but it is eafy to fuppofe thefe three capitals to be in the hands of three different perfons; and the fmalleft reflection will fuffice to thew that then the annual produce ought to be divided equally between the three proprietors or capitalifts."

That the reader may perfectly understand the author throughout his work, he must bear in mind this diftribution of interests or capitals, on which the whole of the reafoning hinges.

In his fecond era, our author fuppofes that a fecond man arrives at the habitation of the first fetler, and thus addreffes him: "I have been round all your grounds; they are well fecured against robbers, and no one can get into them without your permiffion: but they are of so great an extent, that even if you were to have annually as many children as you will have in fifty years, it would be impoffible for you to till the whole. I have children as well as you, and a wife who will bring me more. I wish, like you, to fhelter them and myself from the robbers whom we have fo much reafon to dread: befides, I fee that there are in your lands certain establishments which must facilitate labour, and render it productive in a fhorter time and to a much more confiderable degree than I could expect in return for my pains, were I to look out for an uncultivated fpot, to fortify it against the attacks of robbers, to fell trees, to fow corn, and, until reaping time, to depend for my fubfiftence on hunting. Give us leave to work with you, and we will make an equal divifion of the produce of our common labour."

The other man tells him that he is willing to admit him and his family into his fociety, but not to divide equally the produce of their labour. He fays that, when he firit began to form his establishment, he scarcely was able to make one and a half (no matter what*) of his induftry:

"At prefent, (fays he,) it produces me four or five with a great deal lefs labour; I have houfes where I lay up the fruits of an abundant year to guard against what I have experienced more than once, a bad year in which I had either no crop at all or a very fcanty one I muft therefore look on two parts out of four of the produce of my annual induftry, as belonging both to my capital in land, and to the accumulation of thofe capitals of anterior labours, which very foon made the earth produce twofold, and enabled me to hoard what I had no occafion to confume; the other two portions belong to me as the price of my annual induftry, without which I could not, any more than you, fubfift even with this accumulation of fo many other capitals, acquired with fo much toil, and to which you have not at all contributed.

"If to my labour, which I will not fpare, and to that of my wife, who is as well able to work as yours, you add your own, my land will certainly yield eight or nine; of which i will claim one-third on account of my property in the foil and of my stock arising from anterior labours another third as the price of my year's work; and the remaining third fhall belong to you, and obferve that, though I thus get twice

The commercial phrafe per cent, will not luit here.

as

as much as you, yet you get, in the very firft year, what I did not get till many years after I planted the firft ftake, cut down the first tree, and laid the firft ftone of the buildings where I keep the overplus of my harvests, on which I live during barren years, and without which I muft ftarve. Obferve, alfo, that it is by means of thefe buildings, and of this overplus which they have preferved, that I am enabled to feed you from this day forwards; and that I fhall be obliged to feed you, your wife, and your children, till next year; for it will not be till then that we fhall get in our increafe, the third of which will not, ftrictly fpeaking, be due to you till after the harvest.".

What fhall the new comer do? I fee but three ways in which he can proceed. The firft, to accept the proportion that is offered to him. The fecond, to go in fearch of an uninhabited, uncultivated piece of ground, to fortify, plant it, &c. and content himself for feveral years with a produce greatly below the third part which he could procure from this very day forwards in the land belonging to another. The third, to murder the proprietor and his children, that he may enjoy his wife and land, and the accumulation of former labours, which coft him neither pains nor trouble, and which made worth four or five the annual industry of the unfortunate man whom he fhall have maffacred, and of his wife, whom he shall have appropriated to his own ufe. This laft mode is certainly the shortest: but then it is defcribed by the names of rape, robbery, and murder. I fuppofe then that the second man accepts the offer.'

In the third era, we are to suppose the arrival of a third man with a wife and two children, who thus addreffes the proprietor of the foil:

"What occafion have you to till the ground? You had better watch over the state of your palings; I have feen fome of them that are ready to tumble down; go and repair them: your land produces you-fo much—with your labour and that of the fecond family; mine hall replace yours; fo that the annual produce will fill be the fame. It is true we can afford you only three fhares inftead of the fix which you now get with hard working: but of these fix, one-half is in return for your annual induftry, the other for your anterior labours: this half is justly referved to you as the price of thofe works, without which we could not make what we are to have for our part.'

The propofal is accepted; and thus the great capitalist, or proprietor by excellence, experiences a real but a juft reduction of onehalf of his income: but then, at the fame time, he is freed from all other occupation, except that of infpecting the work of the other two families, and keeping in repair and proper condition whatever may be neceffary to render it productive.'

In the fourth era, the laft comer makes a propofal to the fecond comer, of this nature:

"You and I have now between us two-thirds of the produce of the land, which in good years amounts to fix, in bad feafons to no more than four. Now, if you will confent to leave the whole management of the work to me, I will engage that, let the years be good or bad, you fhall never have lefs to receive than fix, and that you shall even be