kindly, and to feed them well, served only to bastardize them. It is
thus with man himself. In proportion as he becomes sociable and a
slave to others, he becomes weak, fearful, mean-spirited, and his soft
and effeminate way of living at once completes the enervation of his
strength and of his courage. We may add, that there must be still a
wider difference between man and man in a savage and domestic
condition, than between beast and beast; for as men and beasts have
been treated alike by nature, all the conveniences with which men
indulge themselves more than they do the beasts tamed by them, are so
many particular causes which make them degenerate more sensibly.

Nakedness therefore, the want of houses, and of all these
unnecessaries, which we consider as so very necessary, are not such
mighty evils in respect to these primitive men, and much less still
any obstacle to their preservation. Their skins, it is true, are
destitute of hair; but then they have no occasion for any such
covering in warm climates; and in cold climates they soon learn to
apply to that use those of the animals they have conquered; they have
but two feet to run with, but they have two hands to defend themselves
with, and provide for all their wants; it costs them perhaps a great
deal of time and trouble to make their children walk, but the mothers
carry them with ease; an advantage not granted to other species of
animals, with whom the mother, when pursued, is obliged to abandon her
young ones, or regulate her steps by theirs. In short, unless we admit
those singular and fortuitous concurrences of circumstances, which I
shall speak of hereafter, and which, it is very possible, may never
have existed, it is evident, in every state of the question, that the
man, who first made himself clothes and built himself a cabin,
supplied himself with things which he did not much want, since he had
lived without them till then; and why should he not have been able to