and show in a true picture of the state of nature,
how much even natural inequality falls short in this state of that
reality and influence which our writers ascribe to it.

In fact, we may easily perceive that among the differences, which
distinguish men, several pass for natural, which are merely the work
of habit and the different kinds of life adopted by men living in a
social way. Thus a robust or delicate constitution, and the strength
and weakness which depend on it, are oftener produced by the hardy or
effeminate manner in which a man has been brought up, than by the
primitive constitution of his body. It is the same thus in regard to
the forces of the mind; and education not only produces a difference
between those minds which are cultivated and those which are not, but
even increases that which is found among the first in proportion to
their culture; for let a giant and a dwarf set out in the same path,
the giant at every step will acquire a new advantage over the dwarf.
Now, if we compare the prodigious variety in the education and manner
of living of the different orders of men in a civil state, with the
simplicity and uniformity that prevails in the animal and savage life,
where all the individuals make use of the same aliments, live in the
same manner, and do exactly the same things, we shall easily conceive
how much the difference between man and man in the state of nature
must be less than in the state of society, and how much every
inequality of institution must increase the natural inequalities of
the human species.

But though nature in the distribution of her gifts should really
affect all the preferences that are ascribed to her, what advantage
could the most favoured derive from her partiality, to the prejudice
of others, in a state of things, which scarce admitted any kind of
relation between her pupils? Of what service can beauty be, where
there is no love? What will wit avail people who don't speak, or craft
those who have no affairs to transact? Authors are constantly crying
out, that the strongest would oppress the weakest; but let them
explain what they mean by the word oppression. One man will rule with
violence, another will groan under a constant subjection to all his
caprices: this is indeed precisely what I observe among us, but I
don't see how it can be said of savage men, into whose heads it would
be a harder matter to drive even the meaning of the words domination
and servitude. One