"And here we have the plain "difference
between the state of nature and the state of war", which, however some
men have confounded [them], are as far distant as a state of peace, good-will,
mutual assistance and preservation, and a state of enmity, malice, violence,
and mutual destruction"
| Jean Jacques Rousseau, (1712-1778), was a brilliant though somewhat unstable man who is best known for his work entitled The Social Contract (1762), from which came the phrase "Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains." Contrary to other thinkers of this time, Rousseau believed that the state of nature was free and pure, and that it was society that had corrupted man. His works, though they can be used to support opposing views, led to the development of democracy and Romanticism, and echo through history under the battle cry of the French Revolution "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity". |