Lowness, abjection, synonymous terms in that they both describe a condition we find ourselves in; if, however, we arrange them together, writes Abbé Girard, then abjection should precede lowness, and the delicacy of our language means we speak about a state of abjection , a low state .

Abjection is found in the darkness we enter because of our own actions, in the small esteem others have for us, in their rejecting us, and in the humiliating situations they reduce us to. Lowness, the same writer goes on, is found in meanness of birth, merit, fortune or dignity.

Let us note here, if Abbé Girard’s observation is right, how much language alone gives us prejudices. A child, when he becomes aware of the term lowness, will see it as a sign that must ever afterwards awaken in his understanding ideas of a blemish of birth, merit, fortune, condition and of contempt. Whether he reads, writes, reflects or speaks to others, he will never come across the term lowness without associating it with this series of false notions; and since grammatical signs have that special quality, particularly in ethics, of not only denoting things, but also the general opinion attributed to them by people who speak the same language, then the child will believe he thinks differently to others and is mistaken if he feels no contempt for anyone lacking in birth, dignities, merit and fortune, and if he does not have the greatest veneration for anyone who is born well, and who has dignities, merit and fortune. Perhaps he will die without having considered that since all these qualities are independent of ourselves, then only those who possess them can be happy! He will make no distinction between acquired merit and natural merit, and he will never have known that vice is really all that can be despised and virtue all that can be admired.

The child will imagine that nature has raised up some beings, and reduced others to lowness , but that nature places no one in abjection ; that men cast themselves into that state by choice or else they may be cast there by others. If it does not occur to him that these ‘others’ are mostly unjust and prejudiced, then the ill-founded difference made in language between the terms lowness and abjection will end up corrupting his heart and mind.

Piety, says the author of the Synonyms, decreases the bitterness of the state of abjection . Stupidity, he says, prevents us from seeing all the disadvantages of our state of lowness ; intelligence and virtuousness mean we feel sadness for one and shame for the other.

And I say that the terms abjection and lowness seem only to have been invented by unjust men in a happy state, whence they insulted those whom nature, chance and other causes of this kind had not equally favoured; that philosophy supports us when we fall into abjection , and does not allow us to think that anyone can can be born into lowness ; that a philosopher without birth, without property, without wealth, without position, will know that he is only an abject being for other men, but will not consider himself so; that if he comes from so-called lowness , as it is thought, then he will have left it by his merit alone; that he will spare nothing to avoid falling into abjection , because of the physical and moral disadvantages that go with it, but that if he does fall, without any ill use of his reason to reproach himself with, then he will hardly feel any sadness and no shame at all. There is only one way to avoid the disadvantages of lowness and the humiliations of abjection , and that is to flee from men, or only to see those in the same situation. The former seems to me the surer route, and is the one that I would choose.