The passage from the state of nature to the civil
state produces a very remarkable change in man, by substituting
justice for instinct in his conduct, and giving his actions the
morality they had formerly lacked.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1762
The State of Nature and Society
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Du Contrat Social: ou Principes du
Droit Politique
(The Social Contract).
Amsterdam: ca. 1762.
Rare Book and Special
Collections Division (36)
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A Civil Society
French author and philosopher Jean-Jacques
Rousseau (1712-1778) published The Social Contract,
perhaps his most influential work, in 1762. In this treatise,
Rousseau suggests that man once lived in a "state of nature,"
enjoying complete freedom. Rousseau argued that people had
to fashion a civil society that they could control and in
which they could be free.
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A Great Artificial Monster
In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes,
influential English philosopher, described man in a "state
of nature" as living a harsh and violent life. To end this
unacceptable condition, men make a social contract with each
other to give up their freedom to a ruler whose only obligation
is to protect the people. For Hobbes the state was a great
artificial monster or a "leviathan."
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Thomas Hobbes.
Leviathan.
London: Andrew Crooke, 1651.
Holmes Collection,
Rare Book and Special Collection Division (37)
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John Locke.
Two Treatises of Government. .
.
London: A. Churchill, 1690.
Rare Book and Special Collections Division (38.1)
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A Just Government
John Locke, a seventeenth-century philosopher,
explored the foundations of individual understanding and political
governance. In Two Treatises on Government, he
imagined a state of nature in which individuals relied only
upon their own strength. He then described how people left
this precarious condition to accept a social contract under
which the state gains legitimacy by protecting its citizens.
According to Locke, a just government depends on the consent
of those who are governed, which may be withdrawn at any time.
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In the Beginning was the Deed
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Sigmund Freud.
"Totem and Taboo."
Left image - Right
image
Holograph manuscript, 1912-1913.
Manuscript Division
(39, 39.1) |
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Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) developed
theories concerning human psychology, society and culture.
Freud believed that society creates mechanisms to ensure social
control of human instincts. At the root of these controlling
mechanisms, he thought, is the prohibition against incest.
In Totem and Taboo, he speculated that this taboo
had its genesis in the guilt stemming from the murder of a
powerful patriarch. Thus, he wrote, echoing Goethe, "In the
beginning was the Deed!"
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When Queen Magda [Queen of Sheba] had heard all
these stories her soul was drawn to Solomon and she knew no desire
but to go and greet this king. . . . Thereupon the Queen set out
with much state and majesty and gladness, for by the Will of the
Lord, she wished in her heart to make this journey to Jerusalem,
to rejoice in the Wisdom of Solomon.
Kebra Negast
(Glory of the Kings)
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Kebra Negast (Glory of
the Kings).
Gojam, Ethiopia: 1965.
Detail
Fabric.
African and Middle Eastern
Division (55)
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Queen of Sheba
"In the Beginning a Serpent ruled Ethiopia"
-- so begins text on this fabric version of the story of Makeda,
the Queen of Sheba. The story of her voyage and encounter
with King Solomon of Israel has been told for generations
and recorded in the Bible and the Kebra Negast,
the official Ethiopian account. Haile Selassie I (1892-1975),
the last emperor of Ethiopia, claimed his descent from Menelik,
the son of the queen and Solomon, and thus his authority to
rule as part of the Solomonic dynasty of that country.
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