rt's story:--"The necessity of
shielding our own body from pain and destruction leads us to examine
among external objects those which are useful and those which are
hurtful, so that we may seek the one and flee the others. But we
hardly begin our search into such objects before we discover among
them a great number of beings which strike us as exactly like
ourselves; that is, whose form is just like our own, and who, so far
as we can judge at the first glance, appear to have the same
perceptions. Everything therefore leads us to suppose that they have
also the same wants, and consequently the same interest in satisfying
them, whence it results that we must find great advantage in joining
with them for the purpose of distinguishing in nature what has the
power of preserving us from what has the power of hurting us. The
communication of ideas is the principle and the stay of this union,
and necessarily demands the invention of signs; such is the origin of
the formation of societies." _Discours Preliminaire de
l'Encyclopedie._ Contrast this with Aristotle's sensible statement
(_Polit._ I. ii. 15) that "there is in men by nature a strong impulse
to enter into such union."

[192] _Code de la Nature._

[193] See, for example, his criticism on the Abbe de St. Pierre.
_Conf._, viii. 264. And also in the analysis of this very Discourse,
above, vol. i. p. 163.

[194] "I have lived with communities of savages in South America and
in the East, who have no laws or law courts but the public opinion of
the visage freely expressed. Each man scrupulously respects the rights
of his fellow, and any infraction of those rights rarely or never
takes place. In such a community all are nearly equal. There are none
of those wide distinctions of education and ignorance, wealth and
poverty, master and servant, which are the products of our
civilisation; there is none of that widespread division of labour
which, while it increases wealth, produces also conflicting interests;
there is not that severe competition and struggle for existence, or
for wealth, which the dense population of civilised countries
inevitably creates. All incitements to great crimes are thus wanting,
and petty ones are repressed, partly by the influence of public
opinion, but chiefly by that natural sense of justice and of his
neighbour's right, which seems to be in some degree inherent in every
race of man. Now, although we have progressed vastly beyond the savage
state