Beginning of Essay
Rousseau writes in answer to a question proposed to him, namely, what is the origin of inequality? Almost all of the philosophers writing before him tended to assert that certain things were inherent in man’s original nature, and that this lead to the origin of ....

Middle of Essay
.... in a natural state, when in fact ‘it is impossible to understand the law of nature and consequently to obey it without being a great reasoner and a profound metaphysician, which means precisely that for the establishment of society, men must have used enlightenment which develops only with great difficulty and by a very small number of people within the society itself.’ (854) Primitive man could not have been in this ‘state of nature’ if it takes a civilized mind to even conceive of it. Man then, according to Rousseau, began with only two motivations: an ‘ardent[] interest[] in our wellbeing and our self preservation, and … a natural repu ....