We Need to Go Back to the Beginning to Understand Man - Preface to The "Second Discourse" by Jean Jacques Rousseau

Preface - We Have to Go Back to Primitive Man 

Rousseau prefaces his work on the origin of inequality by pointing out that we cannot understand where inequality between men comes from if we do not understand man himself. But this is more difficult than it might seem because Rousseau holds a quite clear distinction between man in his primitive state and man after having been corrupted over time by society, and everything that goes along with modern societies. "... instead of a being acting always by fixed and invariable principles, instead of that heavenly and majestic simplicity with which its author had endowed it, one no longer finds anything except the ugly contrast of passion which presumes to reason and understanding in delirium". 1 This process of disfiguration is only getting worse over time and so unless we go back and study who man was then he will be lost. 

Inequality in Development

This continual evolution of the nature of man began from a place where all were equal, just like the animals in their own species. But something took place with some that did not take place with others, bringing about changes in some that led to their faster development than others. Now Rousseau clarifies that he does not have exact knowledge of ancient humanity, but is following certain general lines of reasoning about these things. 2 "...for it is not light undertaking to separate what is original from what is artificial in the present nature of man, and to know correctly a state which no longer exists, which perhaps never existed, which probably never will exist, and about which it is nevertheless necessary to have precise notions in order to judge our present state correctly." 

Experiments could be done though with the help of the smartest philosophers and the funding of the state to figure some of this mystery about the original nature of man out. If we are going to establish that man has natural rights we need to know more about original man. "It is therefore from this very nature of man, he continues, from his constitution and his state, that the principles of that science must be deduced." 3

Primitive Man's Law? 

Is is possible for thinkers to agree on this question of original man and the law that binds him? The Romans held that the natural law included all of nature, that it was how natured imposed and governed itself. While the men of Rousseau's time thought of natural law as that which applies to the morality of man alone. Either way, probing these questions will take a "great reasoner and a profound metaphysician". 4 For Rousseau natural law is not the morals of the man today who has added so many conventions to himself and society, but the law that held man back before all of these things. Natural law must be able to be done by man and must be a law which nature endowed to him. It must be connected with the deepest functions of the human soul. 

There are two fundamental principles that have always belonged to man. "... I believe I perceive in it two principles anterior to reason, of which one interests us ardently in our well-being and our self-preservation, and the other inspires in us a natural repugnance to see any sensitive being perish or suffer, principally our fellow men." Rousseau posits these are happening before reason and social intercourse. In other words, the natural law begins in man's drive to survive and his empathy towards seeing others suffer. 5 Reason, though, later on, has to find its own justification for these principles. Therefore, man can be guided by a reality which preexists the wise saying of philosophers. "... and as long as he does not resists the inner impulse of commiseration, he will never harm another man or even another sensitive being, except in the legitimate case where, his preservation being concerned, he is obliged to give himself preference." 

Indeed if natural law originates in the fact of being a sensitive being to pain, then animals too have some natural right not to be mistreated by us. When we go back to the beginning of things, like this, it brings clarity to the multitude of contemporary questions around inequality and politics. 6 Indeed, at first, society looks like it is built on these ephemeral connections between men. Who is rich and who is poor? Who is strong and who is weak? And if this were true then society would have a foundation of sand. And so there must be a deeper relationship between men that is a more solid foundation. 

And so this present work is justified in that it seeks to study things from the beginning to see what God had set up versus what humans have morphed and added man's relationships to be. "... the hypothetical history of governments is an instructive lesson for man in all respects." 7

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1 - Rousseau, Jean Jacques. The First and Second Discourses. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1964. Pg. 91 

2 - 92 

3 - 93

4 - 94

5 - 95

6 - 96

7 - 97