“Dissatisfied with your present condition for reasons which portend for your unhappy posterity still greater discontent, you may wish you could turn back time – and this feeling must express the eulogy of your first ancestors, the indictment of your contemporaries and the terror of those who have the misfortune to live after you” (P.79). In Rousseau's A Discourse on Inequality, he discusses not only the inequalities between men, but also the inequality of happiness between pre-civilized and post-civilized humans. Rousseau believes that as savages, humanity leads a simple and unconscious lifestyle, unaware of its own existence, with "self-preservation being [their] only concern" (P.86). Rousseau defines this monotonous existence as happiness, but with a constant and unchanging lifestyle, comfort and indifference seem to be surpassing characterizations. Modern life, which Rousseau sees as an oppressive abyss of misery, contrasts savagery with its diversity and therefore the possibility of happiness. Although Rousseau successfully depicts the adequate way of life of the “savage people,” he fails to convince readers of a greater pre-civilized happiness. Rousseau begins his speech by introducing the wild man and his seemingly preferable lifestyle. According to him, man “satisfies his hunger under an oak tree, quenches his thirst at the first stream, finds his bed under the same tree that provided him with his meal; and behold, his needs are met” (P.81). Whatever desires man may have, limited to those relating to self-preservation, he can acquire them easily and effortlessly. Being an undeniably gentle and simplistic way of life, Rousseau idealizes wild life as one that surpasses civilized life for its greatest happiness... middle of paper ...... leaders of a dominant happiness in the state civilized. In the wild, men are like machines performing the actions necessary for their conservation, but civility offers the opportunity to release the grip on their comfortable nature and dive into the unknown, bringing them true happiness. The introduction of desires, inequalities and government deprives man of his oblivion and sets him on an irreversible but promising path. Despite the countless changes that man has undergone, one statement applies to both savage and civilized man: "It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who know how to better manage change” (Darwin). Works cited Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. A speech on inequalities. Trans. Maurice Cranston. London: Penguin Books, 1984. Print. Darwin, Charles Robert. The origin of species. New York: PF Collier & Son, 1909. Print.