A Discourse On Inequality Among Mankind
(Jean-Jacques Rousseau)
Through his Discourse on the Inequality among Mankind, which he thought both physical as it is established by nature, and political established by men, Jean Jacques Rousseau described the primitive Man and his behaviour towards his kind and wild life in a detailed way.
His description of the early man had not been criticised by his contemporaries or by any recent study and research done by anthropologists or archaeologists.
The early man lived in state of nature, harmless to his neighbours, because at that time he knew no vice and even no virtue.
He ate whatever he came across, he drank wherever he found water, and as he had no fixed dwelling, he slept wherever he happened to be at nightfall.
Rousseau imagined the primitive man wearing animal skins and singing around a fire in front of his hut or around a tree. As they used to gather every day; and through idleness, they began to look at each other and wanted to be looked at themselves. They tried to outshine each other by doing better at dancing and other performances. That?s why the state of nature they lived in peacefully came to be altered and it was aggravated when some men came with the idea of property. They claimed to possess some enclosed lands and began to practice farming which generated the need for many hands at work in the field, and some in making tools by melting iron and forging it into ploughing and digging instruments.
Then the landowners grew eager and eager, exploiting their employees until they became slaves, and a big difference in social rank and rights began to take place.
The innocence of our ancestors was corrupted by the discovery of land owning and technique.
If you want to be taken in a trip into the past, just read The Discourse on Inequality among Mankind and you will visit and discover and understand humanity through the ages.
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