ay back to the time of the ancient Greeks. He began the first part of that essay with this statement: "Important as it may be, in order to judge rightly of the natural state of man, to consider him from his origin, and to examine him, as it were in the embryo of his species; I shall not follow his organization through its successive developments, nor shall I stay to inquire what his animal system must have been at the beginning, in order to become at length what it actually is. I shall not ask whether his long nails were at first, as Aristotle supposes, only crooked talons; whether his whole body, like that of a bear, was not covered with hair; or whether the fact that he walked upon all fours, with his looks directed toward the earth, confined to a horizon of a few paces, did not at once point out the nature and limits of his ideas."Rousseau himself wisely declined to affirm any of these evolutionary views, stating that there was insufficient evidence for any of them to be proven: "On this subject, I could form none but vague and almost imaginary conjectures. Comparative anatomy has as yet made too little progress, and the observations of naturalists are too uncertain to afford an adequate basis for any solid reasoning."He then stated that ordinary common sense, even apart from any religious conviction, would lead one to believe that man had not evolved from an animal, but had always existed in his present form: "So that, without having recourse to the supernatural information given us on this head [the Bible], or paying any regard to the changes which must have taken place in the internal, as well as the external, conformation of man, as he applied his limbs to new uses, and fed himself on new kinds of food, I shall suppose his conformation to have been at all times what it appears to us at this day; that he always walked on two legs, made use of his hands as we do, directed his looks over all nature, and measured with his eyes the va...
