, one earned a great
deal by his labour, while the other could scarce live by his. It is
thus that natural inequality insensibly unfolds itself with that
arising from a variety of combinations, and that the difference among
men, developed by the difference of their circumstances, becomes more
sensible, more permanent in its effects, and begins to influence in
the same proportion the condition of private persons.

Things once arrived at this period, it is an easy matter to imagine
the rest. I shall not stop to describe the successive inventions of
other arts, the progress of language, the trial and employments of
talents, the inequality of fortunes, the use or abuse of riches, nor
all the details which follow these, and which every one may easily
supply. I shall just give a glance at mankind placed in this new order
of things.

Behold then all our faculties developed; our memory and imagination at
work, self-love interested; reason rendered active; and the mind
almost arrived at the utmost bounds of that perfection it is capable
of. Behold all our natural qualities put in motion; the rank and
condition of every man established, not only as to the quantum of
property and the power of serving or hurting others, but likewise as
to genius, beauty, strength or address, merit or talents; and as these
were the only qualities which could command respect, it was found
necessary to have or at least to affect them. It was requisite for men
to be thought what they really were not. To be and to appear became
two very different things, and from this distinction sprang pomp and
knavery, and all the vices which form their train. On the other hand,
man, heretofore free and independent, was now in consequence of a
multitude of new wants brought under subjection, as it were, to all
nature, and especially to his fellows, whose slave in some sense he
became even by becoming their master; if rich, he stood in need of
their services, if poor, of their assistance; even mediocrity itself
could not enable him to do without them. He must therefore have been
continually at work to interest them in his happiness, and make them,
if not really, at least apparently find their advantage in labouring
for his: this rendered him sly and artful in his dealings with some,
imperious and cruel in his dealings with others, and laid him under
the necessity of using ill all those whom he stood in need of, as
often as he could not awe them into a compliance with