his condition is the real youth
of the world, and that all ulterior improvements have been so many
steps, in appearance towards the perfection of individuals, but in
fact towards the decrepitness of the species.

As long as men remained satisfied with their rustic cabins; as long as
they confined themselves to the use of clothes made of the skins of
other animals, and the use of thorns and fish-bones, in putting these
skins together; as long as they continued to consider feathers and
shells as sufficient ornaments, and to paint their bodies of different
colours, to improve or ornament their bows and arrows, to form and
scoop out with sharp-edged stones some little fishing boats, or clumsy
instruments of music; in a word, as long as they undertook such works
only as a single person could finish, and stuck to such arts as did
not require the joint endeavours of several hands, they lived free,
healthy, honest and happy, as much as their nature would admit, and
continued to enjoy with each other all the pleasures of an independent
intercourse; but from the moment one man began to stand in need of
another's assistance; from the moment it appeared an advantage for one
man to possess the quantity of provisions requisite for two, all
equality vanished; property started up; labour became necessary; and
boundless forests became smiling fields, which it was found necessary
to water with human sweat, and in which slavery and misery were soon
seen to sprout out and grow with the fruits of the earth.

Metallurgy and agriculture were the two arts whose invention produced
this great revolution. With the poet, it is gold and silver, but with
the philosopher it is iron and corn, which have civilized men, and
ruined mankind. Accordingly both one and the other were unknown to the
savages of America, who for that very reason have always continued
savages; nay other nations seem to have continued in a state of
barbarism, as long as they continued to exercise one only of these
arts without the other; and perhaps one of the best reasons that can
be assigned, why Europe has been, if not earlier, at least more
constantly and better civilized than the other quarters of the world,
is that she both abounds most in iron and is best qualified to
produce corn.

It is a very difficult matter to tell how men came to know anything of
iron, and the art of employing it: for we are not to suppose that they
should of themselves think of digging it out of