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Quotation from Discourse on the Origin of Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
“this is the faculty of improvement; a faculty which, as circumstances offer, successively unfolds all the other faculties, and resides among us not only in the species, but in the individuals that compose it”
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, First Part, trans. Anonymous (Harvard Classics, 1910)
Rousseau names perfectibility as the quality that, beyond dispute, distinguishes humans from beasts.
Citation: "this is the faculty of improvement; a faculty which, as circumstances offer, successively unfolds all the other faculties, and resides among us not only in the species, but in the individuals that compose it" — Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, First Part, trans. Anonymous (Harvard Classics, 1910). (id rousseau-discourse-on-inequality-q3)
Portrait: Portrait of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), Maurice Quentin de La Tour, Public domain.
