The Social Contract

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ARISTOTLE was right; but he took the effect for the cause. Every man born into slavery is born for slavery, nothing is more certain. Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire to escape them: they love their servitude as the companions of Ulysses loved their brutishness*. If there are therefore slaves by nature, it is because there have been slaves against nature. Force made the first slaves; their cowardice perpetuated them.

I HAVE said nothing of King Adam, nor of Emperor Noah, father of three great Monarchs who shared the universe, as did the children of Saturn, whom one has thought to recognize in them. I hope I will be thanked for this

• See a small treatise by Plutarch entitled: That beasts use reason.