Arcadianism, which was thus only a side-issue for Rousseau, was the extreme expression of tendencies which appear in the speculations of other thinkers of the day.  Morelly and Mably argued in favour of a reversion to simpler forms of life.  They contemplated the foundation of socialistic communities by reviving institutions and practices which belonged to a past period of social evolution.  Mably, inspired by Plato, thought it possible by legislation to construct a state of antique pattern. [Footnote:  For Mably’s political doctrines see Guerrier’s monograph, L’Abbe de Mably (1886), where it is shown that among “the theories which determined in advance the course of the events of 1789” the Abbe’s played a role which has not been duly recognised.] They ascribed evils of civilisation to inequality arising from the existence of private property, but Morelly rejected the view of the “bold sophist” Rousseau that science and art were to blame.  He thought that aided by science and learning man might reach a state based on communism, resembling the state of nature but more perfect, and he planned an ideal constitution in his romance of the Floating Islands. [Footnote:  Naufrage des isles flottantes ou Basiliade du celebre Pilpai (1753).  It begins:  “je chante le regne aimable de la Verite et de la Nature.”  Morelly’s other work, Code de la Nature, appeared in 1755.] Different as these views were, they represent the idea of regress; they imply a condemnation of the tendencies of actual social development and recommend a return to simpler and more primitive conditions.

Even Diderot, though he had little sympathy with Utopian speculations, was attracted by the idea of the simplification of society, and met Rousseau so far as to declare that the happiest state was a mean between savage and civilised life.

“I am convinced,” he wrote, “that the industry of man has gone too far and that if it had stopped long ago and if it were possible to simplify the results, we should not be the worse.  I believe there is a limit in civilisation, a limit more conformable to the felicity of man in general and far less distant from the savage state than is imagined; but how to return to it, having left it, or how to remain in it, if we were there?  I know not.” [Footnote:  Refutation de l’ouvrage d’Helvetius in OEuvres ii. p. 431.  Elsewhere (p. 287) he argues that in a community without arts and industries there are fewer crimes than in a civilised state, but men are not so happy.]

His picture of the savages of Tahiti in the Supplement au voyage de Bougainville was not seriously meant, but it illustrates the fact that in certain moods he felt the fascination of Rousseau’s Arcadia.

D’Holbach met all these theories by pointing out that human development, from the “state of nature” to social life and the ideas and commodities of civilisation, is itself natural, given the innate tendency of man to improve his lot.  To return to the simpler life of the forests—­or to any bygone stage—­would be denaturer l’homme, it would be contrary to nature; and if he could do so, it would only be to recommence the career begun by his ancestors and pass again through the same successive phases of history. [Footnote:  Syst. soc. i. 16, p. 190.]