Here we note a related opposition in the play between Art or civilization, on the one hand, and Nature, or anarchic instinct, on the other. Following out one line of analysis, many scholars have noted that a passage from the French philosopher Montaigne's essay "On Cannibals" is echoed in Gonzalo's ideal commonwealth speech (Act II, scene i, 143-164), in which he says that were he the ruler of an ideal society, he would "execute all things," with no trade, no law nor courts permitted, and furthermore, "No occupation; all men idle, all: / And women too, but innocent and pure; / No sovereignty—" (155-157). What Gonzalo is espousing is a primitive state of humanity, such as Montaigne wrote about and Elizabethans were familiar with from the reports of New World explorers. Largely through that arch-primitive Caliban, Shakespeare distances himself from Gonzalo's vision of a pre-civil society. Indeed, Gonzalo later reinforces part of his argument on this count, when he says of the spirits that Prospero summons to the illusory banquet of Act III, scene iii,

If I should say, I saw such islanders,—
For, certes, these are people of the island,—
Who, though they are of monstrous shape, yet, note,
Their manners are more gentle-kind than of
Our human generation you shall find
Many, nay, almost any (30-35).

As epitomized by Ariel, the original inhabitants of Prospero's island generally exist without need for labor, without standing law, and without customary restraint, for they are good by nature. But there is a two-fold problem here: first, there is the matter of Caliban; second, the people to whom Gonzalo refers are not people, for they are not even human.