ABSTRACT
The charming book of impressions and experiences which Francois-Jean de Chastellux published in 1786 was at once a lightly-drawn sketch and a profound critique of American society. To understand the concepts on which the book rests, it is now necessary to study Jean Pierre Brissot's philosophic ideas. Like Raynal, like Mably, like Chastellux, Brissot was an important philosopher. What characterizes his thought is an uncompromising radicalism, a radicalism which is only content when it believes itself to have penetrated to the ultimate of things. Now the ultimate of things, the original reality from which all others have sprung and to which all others can be traced, is the fact of motion. So motion is not only creation but also annihilation. In this way Brissot deduces the institution of property from a contemplation of the universe as a whole. Property is a central concept of life, not an invention of men.
