I would like to thank Roger D. Masters, Phillip R. Sloan, and my anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

1. On the importance of this note, see Masters, Roger D., The Political Philosophy of Rousseau (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968)Google Scholar; and Meier, Heinrich, “The Discourse on the Origin and the Foundations of Inequality Among Men: On the Intention of Rousseau's Most Philosophical Work,” Interpretation 16 (1988–1989): 218.Google Scholar

2. Rousseau, Jean-jacques, “Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men,” in The Collected Writings of Rousseau, ed. Masters, Roger D. and Kelly, Christopher and trans. Judith R. Bush, Roger D. Masters, and Christopher Kelly, 5 vols. to date (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1991-), p. 81Google Scholar; hereafter SD or CW followed by the page numbers.I follow the Roman numeral designation for Rousseau's notes adopted in the Pléiade edition of his complete works. See Rousseau, Jean-jacques, “Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de I inégalite (1755),” in J.-J. Rousseau: Oeuvres complètes, ed. Gagnebin, Bernard and Raymond, Marcel, 4 vols. to date (Paris, 1959-), 3: 109–223Google Scholar; hereafter DOI. This is note ^*8 in SD.

3. Evolutionist readings of the Discourse include Arnhart, Larry, Political Questions (New York: MacMillan, 1986), pp. 264–73Google Scholar; Cranston, Maurice, “Introduction,” in Jean-Jacques Rousseau: A Discourse on Inequality, ed. Cranston, Maurice (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984), pp. 28–30Google Scholar; Crocker, Lester, “Diderot and Eighteenth-Century French Transformism,” in Forerunners of Darwin: 1745–1859, ed. Glass, Bentley, Temkin, Oswei, and Straus, William L. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1959), pp. 133–34)Google Scholar; Lovejoy, A. O., “The Supposed Primitivism of Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality,” Modern Philology 21 (1923): 165–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Masters, Roger D., The Structure of Rousseau's Political Thought, in Hobbes and Rousseau, ed. Cranston, Maurice and Peters, Richard S. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972), pp. 403–404Google Scholar; Masters, , “Introduction,” in Jean-Jacques Rousseau: On Social Contract, ed. Masters, Roger D. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1978), p. 6Google Scholar; Masters, , “Jean-Jacques is Alive and Well: Rousseau and Contemporary Sociobiology, Daedalus 107 (1978): 93–105Google Scholar; Pomeau, Rene, “Voyage et lumières dans la litèrature Française du XVIIe siécle,” Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 57 (1967): 1269–89Google Scholar; Wokler, Robert, “Perfectible Apes in Decadent Cultures: Rousseau's Anthropology Revisited,” Daedalus 103 (1978): 107–134Google Scholar; and Wokler, Robert, “The Ape Debates in Enlightenment Anthropology,” Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 192 (1980): 1164–75.Google Scholar On the contributions to anthropology, see Frayling, Christopher and Wokler, Robert, “From the Orang-utan to the Vampire: Towards an Anthropology of Rousseau,” in Rousseau After 200 Years, ed. Leigh, R. A. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 109–124Google Scholar; Horowitz, Asher, Rousseau, Nature and History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987)Google Scholar; and Horowitz, , “Laws and Customs Thrust Us Back to Infancy: Rousseau's Historical Anthropology,” Review of Politics 52 (1990): 215–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For sociobiology, see Masters, “Jean-Jacques is Alive and Well"; and for primatology, see Arnhart, , Political Questions, pp. 265–68Google Scholar; Frayling and Wokler, “From the Orang-utan to the Vampire"; and Wokler, “The Ape Debates.”

4. Gourevitch, Victor, “Rousseau's Pure State of Nature,” Interpretation 16 (1988): 23–60.Google Scholar

5. Moran, Francis III, “Between Primates and Primitives: Natural Man as the Missing Link in Rousseau'*s Second Discourse,” Journal of the History of Ideas 54 (1993): 37–58.Google Scholar

6. One of the earliest versions of this type of reading can be seen in Lovejoy, , “Primitivism,” p. 168.Google Scholar For translations which use orangutan see SD, pp. 81–83; and “Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality,” in Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Basic Political Writings, ed. Cress, Donald A. (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Co., 1987), p. 96.Google Scholar

7. Blanckaert, Claude, “Premier des singes, dernier des hommes?” Alliage 7–8 (1991): 113–28.Google Scholar

8. Gourevitch, , “Rousseau's Pure State of Nature,” pp. 43–45Google Scholar; also see Gourevitch, , “Editor's Note's,” in Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The First and Secon Discourses and Essay on the Origin of Languages, ed. Gourevitch, Victor (New York: Haper and Row, 1986), pp. 354–55Google Scholar; hereafter FSD.

9. Blanckaert, , “Premier des singes,” p. 115.Google Scholar

10. Purchas, Samuel, Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas His Pilgrimes (1625), 20 vols. (New York, 1965), 5: 398.Google Scholar Strictly speaking, the pongo is first described in Purchas, Purchas, his Pilgrimage (1613), but it is the later and more expansive account which was the source in the anthologies discussed below.

11. Antoine-francois, , l'abbé PréVost, Histoire générate des voyages, 20 vols. (Paris, 1746–1789)Google Scholar; hereafter HGV.

12. Prevost, , HGV, 4: 87–88Google Scholar; also Rousseau, , DOI, p. 209Google Scholar; and SD, p. 81.

13. Prévost, , HGV, IV, 88Google Scholar; also Rousseau, , DOI, p. 209Google Scholar; and SD, p. 81. Blanckaert also views pongo burial practices as raising interesting questions relative to pongo metaphysical beliefs; see Blanckaert, , “Premier des singes,” p. 115.Google Scholar

14. Prévost, , HGV, 4: 614; and 2: 229.Google Scholar

15. Leclerc, Georges Louis, De Buffon, Comte, “Varieties of the Human Species (1753),” in Natural History: General and Particular, ed. and trans. Smellie, William, 8 vols. (London, 1781), 3: 95 and 91Google Scholar; hereafter NH followed by the volume and page numbers.

16. Prévost, , HGV, 4: 88Google Scholar; also Rousseau, , DOI, p. 209Google Scholar; and SD, p. 81.

17. Prévost, , HGV, 4: 88Google Scholar; also Rousseau, , DOI, p. 210Google Scholar; and SD, p. 81.

18. The enjocko is an exception because it was mentioned but not described in Hakluytus Posthumus. Purchas relates that Battel forgot to discuss it, consequently no account of the animal appears in HGV.

19. Prévost, , HGV, 4: 240–41.Google Scholar

20. Ibid., 3: 293–94.

21. SD, p. 81. Rousseau also mentions this point in a letter to David Hume. See Rousseau, , “Rousseau à David Hume, 29 mars 1766,” Correspondance complète de Jean Jacques Rousseau, ed. Leigh, R. A. et al. , 50 vols to date (Geneva: Voltaire Institute, 1965-), 29: 66.Google Scholar Also see Cook, Mercer, “Jean Jacques Rousseau and the Negro,” The Journal of Negro History 21 (1936): 294–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22. I survey many of these reports in my JHI article. Buffon includes illustrations of several bipedal primates, including a jocko standing with a walking stick, and similar illustrations can be found in Tyson, Edward, Orang Outang, sive Homo Sylvestris: or The Anatomy of a Pygmie (1699), ed. Montagu, Ashley (London: Dawson, 1966)Google Scholar; and Bewick, Thomas, A General History of Quadrupeds, 3rd ed. (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1792).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Some of these are reproduced in my JHI article, and accessible reproductions can also be found in Reynolds, Vernon, The Apes (New York: Dutton, 1967).Google Scholar

23. In his editorial notes to the Discourse, Masters notes that Green was Provost's source for the discussion of the pongo but does not discuss the differences between the various descriptions of the animal; see SD, p. 186.

24. Green, John, A New General Collection of Voyages and Travels, 4 vols. (London, 1745–1747), 3: 312Google Scholar; hereafter NGCVT. This compilation, sometimes cited with T. Astley as the author, became one of the more important anthologies of travel writing in the eighteenth century, see Curtin, Philip D., The Image of Africa (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964), p. 12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25. Purchas, , Hakluytus Posthumus, 5: 398Google Scholar; Green, , NGCVT, 3: 312.Google Scholar

26. Purchas, , Hakluytus Posthumus, 5: 398.Google Scholar

27. “Pongos [1755],” in Encydopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonne des sciences, des arts et de métiers (1751–1780), ed. Diderot, Denis (Stuttgart: Bad Cannstatt, 1966–1967), 13:25.Google Scholar

28. Buffon, , “Les Orang-outangs, ou le Pongo et le Jocko [1766],” Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière, 36 vols. (Paris, 1749–1788), 14:49.Google Scholar Huxley also not Buffon's changes but without making a connection to the needs of the chain of being; see Huxley, T. H., Man's Place in Nature (1863), ed. Montagu, Ashley (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1959), p. 24.Google Scholar

29. Buffon, , “Orang Outangs, or the Pongo and the Jocko,” NH, 8: 83Google Scholar, hereafter “Orang Outangs”; Burnet, James [Lord Monboddo], Of the Origin and Progress of Language, 6 vols. (Edinburgh, 1773), 1: 274Google Scholar; and Goldsmith, Oliver, An History of the Earth and Animated Nature, 8 vols. (London, 1774), 4:202.Google Scholar Buffon's error lives on. Blanckaert, in his discussion of the pongo, does not cite Purchas directly but rather Huxley's quotation of Buffon's (mis)translation, and so describes Battel as claiming that the pongo has more intelligence than other animals; see Blanckaert, , “Premier des singes,” p. 115.Google Scholar

30. Prévost, , HGV, 4:87Google Scholar; Rousseau, , DOI, p. 209Google Scholar and SD, p. 81; and see Green, , NGCVT, 3:312.Google Scholar

31. The classic study of the idea is Lovejoy, A. O., The Great Chain of Being (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936), pp. 183–287.Google Scholar Also see Greene, John, The Death of Adam (Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, 1959), pp. 12–152Google Scholar; Willey, Basil, The Eighteenth Century Background: Studies on the Idea of Nature in the Thought of the Period (New York: Columbia University Press, 1940)Google Scholar; Hampson, Norman, A Cultural History of the Enlightenment (New York: Random House, 1968), pp. 63–95Google Scholar; and Jordan, Winthrop D., White Over Black (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1968), pp. 219–39; 482–511.Google Scholar This is not to say that all naturalists or natural philosophers adopted this reading of nature. But just as post-Darwinian theory manages to accommodate substantial debate and disagreements (over such issues as punctuated equilibria, selfish genes, and genetic drift) within a fundamental acceptance of a more general theory, so too could the chain of being. So while we see the occasional outright rejection of the theory, more often than not we see qualifications, modifications, and amendments. Rousseau for instance, rejected a strict reading of the principle of continuity and strongly criticized some of the normative applications of the theory, but otherwise defended it. Developing a full treatment of Rousseau's understanding of and appreciation for the chain of being is beyond the scope of the present article, but for his direct criticism of the theory see Rousseau, , “Lettre á François-Joseph de Conzie, comte des Charmettes, le 17 Janvier 1742,” in Correspondance complète, 1:132–39.Google Scholar For his critique of its normativ applications, see Rousseau, , “Letter from J.J. Rousseau to Mr. de Voltaire, 18 August 1756,” in CW, 3:108–121Google Scholar; and Rousseau, , “Letter from J.J. Rousseau to Mr. Philopolis,” in CW, 3:127–32.Google Scholar For his limited defense of the theory, see Rousseau, “Letter to Voltaire, 18 August 1756.”

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33. Rousseau, , “Lettre á de Conzie,” p. 133Google Scholar; Buffon, , “Of the Nature of Man,” NH, 2: 366Google Scholar; Voltaire, , “Poem on the Lisbon Earthquake (1756),” in The Portable Voltaire, ed. Redman, Ben Ray (New York: Viking, 1977), p. 562Google Scholar; and Voltaire, , “The Great Chain of Being (1764),” in Philosophical Dictionary, ed. and trans. Besterman, Theodore (New York: Penguin, 1972), pp. 107–109.Google Scholar

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39. In a note to chapter nine of the Essay on the Origin of Languages he apparently refers to this episode and expresses his incredulity that the travelers want us to believe their claim that pongos cannot tend a fire for themselves but can perform other mental feats; see FSD, p. 268.

40. Rousseau, , SD, p. 80.Google Scholar Buffon and de Maillet mention several accounts of human populations with tails; see Buffon, , “Varieties of the Human Species,” p. 87Google Scholar; and De Maillet, , Telliamed, pp. 202–206.Google Scholar

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48. Buffon, , “Varieties of the Human Species (1753),” NH, 3:203–207Google Scholar; and “The Ass (1753),” NH, 3: 407–409.Google Scholar For more on Buffon's theory of racial degeneracy see Sloan, , “The Idea of Racial Degeneracy in Buffon's Histoire naturelle,” Studies in Eighteenth Century Culture, 3 (1973): 293–321.Google Scholar

49. Lovejoy, “Buffon and the Problem of Species.”

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