I would not forget the early testimony of the "judicious" Hooker, who in his "Ecclesiastical Polity," that masterly work, dwells on the equality of men by nature, or the subsequent testimony of Locke, in his "Two Treatises of Government," who, quoting Hooker, asserts for himself that "creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature and the use of the same faculties, should also be _equal_ one amongst another, without subordination or subjection."[17] Hooker and Locke saw the equality of men in a state of Nature; but their utterances found more acceptance across the Channel than in England. It is to France that we must pass for the earliest development of this idea, its amplest illustration, and its most complete, accurate, and logical expression. In the middle of the last century appeared the renowned _Encyclopédie_, edited by Diderot and D'Alembert. This remarkable production, where science, religion, and government are discussed with revolutionary freedom, contains an article on Equality, first published in 1755. Here we find the boldest expression of this sentiment down to that time. "Natural Equality," says this authority, "is that which exists between all men by the constitution of their nature only. This Equality is the principle and the foundation of Liberty. Natural or moral equality is, then, founded upon the constitution of human nature common to all men, who are born, grow, subsist, and die in the same manner. Since human nature finds itself the same in all men, it is clear, that, according to Nature's law, each ought to esteem and treat the others as beings who are naturally equal to himself,--that is to say, who are men as well as himself." It is then remarked, that political and civil slavery is in violation of this Equality; and yet the inequalities of nobility in the state are allowed to pass without condemnation. Alluding to these, it is simply said that "they who are elevated above others ought to treat their inferiors as naturally their equals, shunning all outrage, exacting nothing beyond what is their due, and exacting with humanity what is incontestably their due."[18] [17] Locke on Government, Book II. ch. 2, § 4. Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity, Book I. [18] Encyclopédie, art. _Égalité Naturelle_, Tom. V. p. 415.