ABSTRACT
In 1753 the Academy of Dijon announced in the Mercure de France the question for the prize essay: ‘What is the source of inequality among men, and whether it is authorized by natural law?’ In response to it, Rousseau re-phrased the question, replacing ‘source’ by ‘origin’, and wrote his Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men1 in the following year.
