us, with a roof to shelter us, clothing to cover us, and arms with which to defend ourselves. —­ In the way of existence that only is healthy which enables us to live in the country, artlessly, without display, in family union, devoted to cultivation, living on the products of the soil and among neighbors that are equals and with servants that one trusts as friends.[36] —­ As for the classes, but one is respectable, that of laboring men, especially that of men working with their own hands, artisans and mechanics, only these being really of service, the only ones who, through their situation, are in close proximity to the natural state, and who preserve, under a rough exterior, the warmth, the goodness and the integrity of primitive instincts. —­ Accordingly, let us call by its true name this elegance, this luxury, this urbanity, this literary delicacy, this philosophical eccentricity, admired by the prejudiced as the flower of the life of humanity; it is only mold and mildew.  In like manner esteem at its just value the swarm that live upon it, namely, the indolent aristocracy, the fashionable world, the privileged who direct and make a display, the idlers of the drawing room who talk, divert themselves and regard themselves as the elect of humanity, but who are simply so many parasites.  Whether parasitic or excretory, one attracts the other, and the tree can only be well if we get rid of both.

If civilization is bad, society is worse. [37] For this could not have been established except by destroying primitive equality, while its two principal institutions, property and government, are encroachments.

“He who first enclosed a plot of ground, and who took it into his to say this belongs to me, and who found people simple enough to believe him,[38] was the true founder of civil society.  What crimes, what wars, what murders, what misery and what horrors would have been spared the human race if he who, pulling up the landmark and filling up the ditch, had cried out to his fellows:  Be wary of that impostor; you are lost if you forget that no one has a right to the land and that its fruits are the property of all !” —­ The first ownership was a robbery by which an individual abstracted from the community a portion of the public domain.  Nothing could justify the outrage, nothing added by him to the soil, neither his industry, nor his trouble, nor his valor.  “In vain may he assert that he built this wall, and acquired this land by his labor.  Who marked it out for him, one might ask, and how do you come to be paid for labor which was never imposed on you?  Are you not aware that a multitude of your brethren are suffering and perishing with want because you have too much, and that the express and unanimous consent of the whole human species is requisite before appropriating to yourself more than your share of the common subsistence?” —­