n of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen all seem to agree that man is born with certain faculties. However, the agreement stops with that assertion. The Declaration of Independence states, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..." The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen similarly states, "Men are born, and always continue, free and equal in respect of their right." The two documents assert that man is not born only as a free being, but as equal to all other men. In respect of this freedom and equality, there are "rights" that must naturally be given to man. Rousseau denies such claims. He agrees that man is born free, but he is not necessarily born equal to all others. Rousseau writes in the beginning of his Discourse, "I conceive of two kinds of inequality in the human species: one which I call natural or physical, because it is established by nature and consists in the difference of age, health, bodily strength, and qualities of mind or soul(Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, p37-38)." The statement implies that men are in fact not created equally, so should they be allowed the same "natural rights?" According to Rousseauean thought, this question is almost negligent. Man in the state of nature operates on the sole purpose of trying to survive. He is unconcerned with others, not in the sense that he is cruel, but in that he has limited contact as he in not a member of a society. The concept of rights as man knows them now is not natural, but a convention of society. Rousseau's exploration of property rights further establishes such rights as products of society. Man began possessing only his labor, according to Rousseau. Through this he came to claim land as his own, "It is labor alone that, in giving the cultivator a right to the product of the soil he has tilled, consequently gives him this...
