Some of them did not hesitate to attribute to man, in this state, the idea of ​​just and unjust, without taking the trouble to demonstrate that he must possess such a idea, or that could be useful to him. Others spoke of every man's natural right to keep what belongs to him, without explaining what they meant by belonging. Still others, beginning by giving authority to the strong over the weak, proceeded directly to the birth of government, without regard to the time that must pass before the meaning of the words authority and government could exist among men. In short, each of them, constantly focusing on needs, greed, oppression, desires and pride, transferred ideas acquired in society to the state of nature; so that, speaking of the savage, they described the social man. The question whether the state of nature ever existed has not even occurred to most of our writers; but it is clear from the Holy Scriptures that the first man, having immediately received his understanding and his commandments from God, was not himself in such a state; and that, if we give to the writings of Moses the credit which every Christian philosopher should give, we must deny that, even before the flood, men were ever in the pure state of nature; unless, in fact,