obedience on the other. Whatever we covet, they must
instantly resign: Our permission is the only tenure, by which they hold
their possessions: Our compassion and kindness the only check, by which
they curb our lawless will: And as no inconvenience ever results from
the exercise of a power, so firmly established in nature, the restraints
of justice and property, being totally USELESS, would never have place
in so unequal a confederacy.

This is plainly the situation of men, with regard to animals; and
how far these may be said to possess reason, I leave it to others to
determine. The great superiority of civilized Europeans above barbarous
Indians, tempted us to imagine ourselves on the same footing with regard
to them, and made us throw off all restraints of justice, and even of
humanity, in our treatment of them. In many nations, the female sex are
reduced to like slavery, and are rendered incapable of all property, in
opposition to their lordly masters. But though the males, when united,
have in all countries bodily force sufficient to maintain this severe
tyranny, yet such are the insinuation, address, and charms of their fair
companions, that women are commonly able to break the confederacy, and
share with the other sex in all the rights and privileges of society.

Were the human species so framed by nature as that each individual
possessed within himself every faculty, requisite both for his own
preservation and for the propagation of his kind: Were all society and
intercourse cut off between man and man, by the primary intention of the
supreme Creator: It seems evident, that so solitary a being would be
as much incapable of justice, as of social discourse and conversation.
Where mutual regards and forbearance serve to no manner of purpose,
they would never direct the conduct of any reasonable man. The headlong
course of the passions would be checked by no reflection on future
consequences. And as each man is here supposed to love himself alone,
and to depend only on himself and his own activity for safety and
happiness, he would, on every occasion, to the utmost of his power,
challenge the preference above every other being, to none of which he
is bound by any ties, either of nature or of interest. But suppose
the conjunction of the sexes to be established in nature, a family
immediately arises; and particular rules being found requisite for
its subsistence, these are immediately embraced; though without
compre