it is impossible indeed to conceive how a man, by his own powers alone, without the aid of communication and the spur of necessity, could have bridged so great a gap.
 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality Among Men (1755). copy citation

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Author Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Source Discourse on the Origin of Inequality Among Men
Topic communication power
Date 1755
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by G. D. H. Cole
Weblink https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Discourse_on_the_Origin_of_Inequality_Amo...

Context

“he will improvidently sell you his cotton-bed in the morning, and come crying in the evening to buy it again, not having foreseen he would want it again the next night. The more we reflect on this subject, the greater appears the distance between pure sensation and the most simple knowledge: it is impossible indeed to conceive how a man, by his own powers alone, without the aid of communication and the spur of necessity, could have bridged so great a gap. How many ages may have elapsed before mankind were in a position to behold any other fire than that of the heavens. What a multiplicity of chances must have happened to teach them the commonest uses of that element!” source