Going forward, Rousseau will try to show how society could have come into being due to our natural sentiments of self-preservation and pity. There seems to be plenty of evidence that man is naturally selfish and that he must be nurtured to become sociable. Think here of children who need to be taught how to share, taught to take turns. Rousseau’s account is historical or evolutionary, and as such it differs greatly from that of either Hobbes or Locke, both of whom simply wished you to imagine human beings as they are now but without the restraint of government, and not human beings before they had government.
Thus, setting aside all those scientific books, which teach us only to see men the way they have made themselves, and meditating upon the first and simplest operations of the human soul, I believe I discern there two principles prior to reason: one makes us passionately interested in our well-being and in our own preservation, and the other inspires in us a natural repugnance at seeing any sensitive being perish or suffer, in particular, beings like ourselves. From the cooperation and combination our mind is able to create of these two principles—without it being necessary to bring in the principle of sociability—it seems to me, all the rules of natural right follow, rules which reason is later forced to re-establish on other foundations, when, through its successive developments, it has ended up effectively suffocating nature.
As human beings evolve, reason takes over from the instincts, which it stifles. There are many indicators that reason is doing an excellent job of stifling our instincts, but also at the same time, not doing a very good job of guiding our choices, for instance, we do not even know what to eat anymore.