darken with their shadows the solid temples and streets beneath them.

In the second part of his essay, Rousseau follows the development of
human society. "The first man," he says, "who, having enclosed a piece
of ground, undertook to say, `This is mine,' and found people simple
enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. How many
crimes, wars, murders, how much misery and horror would not he have
spared the human race, who, pulling up the stakes or filling the ditch,
should have cried to his fellows, `Beware of listening to that impostor.
You are lost if you forget that the fruits belong to all, and the land
to none.'"

But this benefactor did not make his appearance. Soon all the land was
divided among a certain number of occupiers. Those whose weakness or
indolence had prevented their getting a share were obliged to sink into
slavery, or to rob their richer neighbors. Then followed civil wars,
tumult and rapine. At last those who had the land conceived the most
deliberate plot that ever entered into the human mind. They persuaded
the poorer people to join with them in establishing an association which
should defend all its members and ensure to each one the peaceful
possession of his property. "Such was the origin of society and laws,
which gave new bonds to the weak, new strength to the rich, irrevocably
destroyed natural liberty, established forever the laws of property and
inequality, turned adroit usurpation into settled right, and, for the
profit of a few ambitious men, subjected thenceforth all the human race
to labor, servitude, and misery."

But on the whole the stage of development which seemed to Rousseau the
happiest was not the state of complete isolation. He supposes that at
one time mankind had assembled in herds, and had made some simple