to dig the ground, cut down trees, and with the branches build huts,
which they afterwards bethought themselves of plastering over with
clay or dirt. This was the epoch of a first revolution, which produced
the establishment and distinction of families, and which introduced a
species of property, and along with it perhaps a thousand quarrels and
battles. As the strongest however were probably the first to make
themselves cabins, which they knew they were able to defend, we may
conclude that the weak found it much shorter and safer to imitate than
to attempt to dislodge them: and as to those, who were already
provided with cabins, no one could have any great temptation to seize
upon that of his neighbour, not so much because it did not belong to
him, as because it could be of no service to him; and as besides to
make himself master of it, he must expose himself to a very sharp
conflict with the present occupiers.

The first developments of the heart were the effects of a new
situation, which united husbands and wives, parents and children,
under one roof; the habit of living together gave birth to the
sweetest sentiments the human species is acquainted with, conjugal and
paternal love. Every family became a little society, so much the more
firmly united, as a mutual attachment and liberty were the only bonds
of it; and it was now that the sexes, whose way of life had been
hitherto the same, began to adopt different manners and customs. The
women became more sedentary, and accustomed themselves to stay at home
and look after the children, while the men rambled abroad in quest of
subsistence for the whole family. The two sexes likewise by living a
little more at their ease began to lose somewhat of their usual
ferocity and sturdiness; but if on the one hand individuals became
less able to engage separately with wild beasts, they on the other
were more easily got together to make a common resistance against