Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/785

Rh essay was not meant to be taken seriously, or that it has been, in some respects, more or less set aside by the later, he might find strong grounds for his opinion. It is enough for me that the same a priori method and the same fallacious assumptions pervade both.

The thesis of the earlier work is that man, in the "state of nature," was a very excellent creature indeed, strong, healthy, good, and contented; and all the evils which have befallen him, such as feebleness, sickness, wickedness, and misery, result from his having forsaken the "state of nature" for the "state of civilization." And the first step in this downward progress was the setting up of rights of several property. It might seem to a plain man that the argument here turns on a matter of fact: if it is not historically true that men were once in this "state of nature"—what becomes of it all? However, Rousseau tells us, in the preface to the "Discours," not only that the "state of nature" is something which no longer exists, but that "perhaps it never existed, and probably never will exist." Yet it is something "of which it is nevertheless necessary to have accurate notions in order to judge our present conditions rightly." After making this singular statement, Rousseau goes on to observe: "Il faudrait même plus de philosophie qu'on ne pense à celui qui entreprendrait de déterminer exactement les précautions à prendre pour faire sur ce sujet de solides observations." (More philosophy indeed is needed than one thinks for him who undertakes to determine exactly the precautions to be taken to make solid observations on this subject.) And, certainly, the amount of philosophy required to base an argument on that which does not exist, has not existed, and perhaps never will exist, may well seem unattainable at any rate, at first sight. Yet, apart from analogies which might be drawn from the mathematical sciences where, for example, a straight line is a thing which has not existed, does not exist, and probably never will exist, and yet forms a good ground for reasoning; and the value of which I need not stop to discuss I take it that Rousseau has a very comprehensible idea at the bottom of this troublesome statement. What I conceive him to mean is that it is possible to form an ideal conception of what ought to be the condition of mankind; and that, having done so, we are bound to judge the existing state of things by that