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Updated: June 1, 2025
Before analysing the Discourse on Inequality, we ought to make some mention of a remarkable man whose influence probably reached Rousseau in an indirect manner through Diderot; I mean Morelly.
It was destined to prove the most serious of all obstacles to representative government. Equality of power readily suggests equality of property; but the movement of Socialism began earlier, and was not assisted by Rousseau. There were solemn theorists, such as Mably and Morelly, who were sometimes quoted in the Revolution, but the change in the distribution of property was independent of them.
Yet there is no hint in the New Heloïsa of the socialism which Morelly and Mably flung themselves upon, as the remedy for all these desperate horrors.
"Oh, him in a bob-tailed evening suit, on the lardy-da!" sneered Dawes, jerking his head contemptuously at Paul. "That's comin' it strong," said the mutual friend. "Tart an' all?" "Tart, begod!" said Dawes. "Go on; let's have it!" cried the mutual friend. "You've got it," said Dawes, "an' I reckon Morelly had it an' all." "Well, I'll be jiggered!" said the mutual friend.
See for instance a strange discussion about morale universelle and the like in Mém. de Mdme. d'Epinay, i. 217-226. Often described as Morelly the Younger, to distinguish him from his father, who wrote an essay on the human heart, and another on the human intelligence. Code de la Nature, ou le véritable esprit de ses loix, de tout tems négligé ou méconnu.
Mably and Morelly had their disciples in Babeuf and the socialists. A naive confidence that the political upheaval meant regeneration and inaugurated a reign of justice and happiness pervaded France in the first period of the Revolution, and found a striking expression in the ceremonies of the universal "Federation" in the Champ-de-Mars on 14th July 1790.
The artificial society of the time, with its aspirations after a return to nature, was moved to the most energetic enthusiasm by Rousseau's famous exhortations to mothers to nourish their own little ones. Morelly, as we have seen, had already enjoined the adoption of this practice. So too had Buffon.
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