derstanding by debasing the species, render a being wicked by
rendering him sociable, and from so remote a term bring man at last
and the world to the point in which we now see them.

I must own that, as the events I am about to describe might have
happened many different ways, my choice of these I shall assign can be
grounded on nothing but mere conjecture; but besides these conjectures
becoming reasons, when they are not only the most probable that can be
drawn from the nature of things, but the only means we can have of
discovering truth, the consequences I mean to deduce from mine will
not be merely conjectural, since, on the principles I have just
established, it is impossible to form any other system, that would not
supply me with the same results, and from which I might not draw the
same conclusions.

This will authorize me to be the more concise in my reflections on the
manner, in which the lapse of time makes amends for the little
verisimilitude of events; on the surprising power of very trivial
causes, when they act without intermission; on the impossibility there
is on the one hand of destroying certain Hypotheses, if on the other
we can not give them the degree of certainty which facts must be
allowed to possess; on its being the business of history, when two
facts are proposed, as real, to be connected by a chain of
intermediate facts which are either unknown or considered as such, to
furnish such facts as may actually connect them; and the business of
philosophy, when history is silent, to point out similar facts which
may answer the same purpose; in fine on the privilege of similitude,
in regard to events, to reduce facts to a much smaller number of
different classes than is generally imagined. It suffices me to offer
these objects to the consideration of my judges; it suffices me to
have conducted my inquiry in such a manner as to save common readers
the trouble of considering them.

SECOND PART

The first man, who, after enclosing a piece of ground, took it into
his head to say, "This is mine," and found people simple enough to
believe him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes,
how many wars, how many murders, how many misfortunes and horrors,
would that man have saved the human species, who pulling up the stakes
or filling up the ditches should have cried to his fellows: Be sure
not to listen to this imposter; you are lost, if you forget that the
fruits of the earth belong