If the process had stopped at a certain point, all would have been well; but man's capacities, stimulated by fortuitous circumstances, urged him onward, and leaving behind him the peaceful Arcadia where he should have remained safe and content, he set out on the fatal road which led to the calamities of civilisation.

We need not follow Rousseau in his description of those calamities which he attributes to wealth and the artificial conditions of society.

His indictment was too general and rhetorical to make much impression.

In truth, a more powerful and comprehensive case against civilised society was drawn up about the same time, though with a very different motive, by one whose thought represented all that was opposed to Rousseau's teaching.

Burke's early work, A Vindication of Natural Society, [Footnote: A.D.