Excerpt:

The notion  that Rousseau’s Discourse  on Inequality  was essentially  a glorification  of the state of nature and that its influence  tended  wholly or chiefly  to promote “primitivism” is one of the most  persistent  of historical  errors. Many examples  of it might  be cited;  I limit  myself  to one, chosen  not only because it is the most recent,  but also because it is found  in what is likely  to be for  many  years to  come the standard  English  treatise  on the history  of political  theories,  a monumental  work by a scholar of admirable learning. In the  Discourse  on Inequality,  wrote  the late Professor  W. A. Dunning:

The natural  man  was first  the  solitary  savage,  living  the  happy,  carefree  life  of the brute. The steps  by which  men  emerged  from  their  primitive  state  are  depicted  with  fascinating  art,  but  the  author’s  regret  at their  success  pervades  the picture.  …. Throughout  the  fluctuations  of his usage,  one  idea’  alone  appeared  unmistakable,  viz., that  the natural  state  of man was  vastly  preferable  to the  social  or civil  state,  and must  furnish  the  norm  by  which  to test  and correct  it.’

This is an exceptionally  moderate statement  of the traditional  view of the Second  Discourse; but it appears to me to be highly  misleading,  especially  in what  it implies  as to the sort  of  ideas which  that  writing  tended to encourage in Rousseau’s contemporaries. The  actual doctrine  of the Discourse,  its relation  to other  conceptions  of  the state of nature,  the character  of the influence  upon opinion  which  it must have had in its time, and the features  of it which  must be  regarded  as constituting  its chief  historic  significance,  I shall attempt  to show in what follows.

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