“’Tis Prudence to Prevent th’Entire Decay”: Usufruct and Environmental Thought

The eighteenth century has frequently been criticized for promulgating a hierarchical, utilitarian relationship between humans and the nonhuman world. This article argues that the legal concept of usufruct serves as the basis for eighteenth-century understandings of that hierarchy which show it to be more concerned with sustainable use of the environment than has heretofore been acknowledged. Usufruct explicitly combines the right to use nature with a responsibility to a higher authority to preserve it. Among the most important groups to whom humans are responsible according to eighteenth-century English writers are the future generations who will rely on the environment to survive.