A Discourse Upon the Origin and the Foundation of the Inequality Among Mankind, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Part I.
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The Distance Between Sensation and Simple Knowledge
It is impossible to conceive how man, by his own powers alone, without the assistance of communication and the spur of necessity, could have got over so great an interval. How many ages perhaps revolve before men beheld any other fire but that of the heavens? How often have they let it go out before they knew the art of reproducing it? And how often perhaps has not every one of these secrets perished with the discoverer? The more we meditate on this subject, the wider does the distance between mere sensation and the most simple knowledge become in our eyes.
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