ion of tendencies which appear in the speculations of
other thinkers of the day. Morelly and Mably argued in favour of a
reversion to simpler forms of life. They contemplated the foundation
of socialistic communities by reviving institutions and practices which
belonged to a past period of social evolution. Mably, inspired by Plato,
thought it possible by legislation to construct a state of antique
pattern. [Footnote: For Mably's political doctrines see Guerrier's
monograph, L'Abbe de Mably (1886), where it is shown that among "the
theories which determined in advance the course of the events of 1789"
the Abbe's played a role which has not been duly recognised.] They
ascribed evils of civilisation to inequality arising from the existence
of private property, but Morelly rejected the view of the "bold sophist"
Rousseau that science and art were to blame. He thought that aided
by science and learning man might reach a state based on communism,
resembling the state of nature but more perfect, and he planned an ideal
constitution in his romance of the Floating Islands. [Footnote: Naufrage
des isles flottantes ou Basiliade du celebre Pilpai (1753). It begins:
"je chante le regne aimable de la Verite et de la Nature." Morelly's
other work, Code de la Nature, appeared in 1755.] Different as
these views were, they represent the idea of regress; they imply
a condemnation of the tendencies of actual social development and
recommend a return to simpler and more primitive conditions.

Even Diderot, though he had little sympathy with Utopian speculations,
was attracted by the idea of the simplification of society, and met
Rousseau so far as to declare that the happiest state was a mean between
savage and civilised life.

"I am convinced," he wrote, "that the industry of man has gone too far
and that if it had stopped long ago and if it were possible to simplify
the results, we should not be the worse. I believe there is a limit in
civilisation, a limit more conformable to the felicity of man in general
and far less distant from the savage state than is imagined; but how to
return to it, having left it, or how to remain in it, if we were there?
I know not." [Footnote: Refutation de l'ouvrage d'Helvetius in OEuvres
ii. p. 431. Elsewhere (p. 287) he argues that in a community without
arts and industries there are fewer crimes than in a civilised state,
but men are not so happy.]

His picture of the savages of Tahiti in the Supplement