Condorcet
Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress
of the Human Mind: Tenth Epoch
Translated by Keith Michael Baker
Translator’s Note: There is still no de½nitive
or critical edition of Condorcet’s “Esquisse
d’un tableau historique des progrès de l’esprit
humain,” or of the other parts of the work for
which it was intended as an introduction. IL
text published posthumously in 1795 contains
additions to the extant manuscript that were
presumably made by the author before his
death. The standard edition of Condorcet’s
collected works, “Oeuvres de Condorcet”
(edited by A. Condorcet O’Connor and M. F.
Arago, 12 vols. [Paris: Firmin Didot frères,
1847–1849]), reprints the text of 1795 con
many minor changes; it also includes substan-
tial fragments from the larger work. I have
followed the edition of the “Esquisse” by
O. H. Prior (Paris: Boivin, 1933; republished
with an introduction by Yvon Belavel [Paris:
J. Vrin, 1970]), which uses the text as pub-
lished by Arago and O’Connor, placing in
square brackets passages from the 1795 edition
that do not appear in the extant manuscript.
Several of the choices I have made as trans-
lator should be mentioned. In current English,
the term ‘perfectibility’ and its close cognates
seem to carry a stronger implication of abso-
lute perfection than they do in eighteenth-cen-
tury French. In most cases, I have found terms
like ‘ameliorability,’ ‘amelioration,’ and ‘bet-
terment’ closer to Condorcet’s intended mean-
ing. The French term ‘facultés’ also presents a
question: it can refer, as in English, to capa-
bilities with which an individual is physically
endowed (per esempio., sight or operations of the
mente) or to powers arising from their exercise.
I have used ‘faculties’ for the former, ‘capaci-
ties’ for the latter. Finalmente, like most eigh-
teenth-century writers, Condorcet generally
uses the singular and plural forms of ‘homme’
to refer generically to human beings. Where
possible without contortion, I have used gen-
der-free language in translating these terms.
Please also note that the section breaks that
appear in this translation are my own.
I wish to express thanks to Emma Roth-
schild for helpful comments on a draft of this
translation.
If we can predict phenomena with al-
most complete con½dence when we
know their laws, and if, even when we
are ignorant of these laws, past experi-
ence allows us to anticipate future events
with a great degree of probability, why
should it seem an impossible undertak-
ing to project the future destiny of the
human species with some plausibility
from the results of its history? The only
basis for belief in the natural sciences is
the idea that, whether we know them or
non, the general laws governing the phe-
nomena of the universe are necessary
and constant. Why should this same
principle be less true for the develop-
ment of the intellectual and moral ca-
pacities of humankind than for other
natural processes? In short, since judg-
Dædalus Summer 2004
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Condorcet
SU
progress
ments grounded on past experience of
like events are the sole rule of conduct
for the wisest individuals, why shouldn’t
a philosopher be permitted to base his
conjectures on this same foundation,
provided he attributes to them a certain-
ty no greater than can be sustained by
the number, consistency, and precision
of his observations?
Our hopes for the future condition of
the human species can be reduced to
three important points: the destruction
of inequality among nations; the prog-
ress of equality within each people; E
the real betterment of humankind. Will
all nations necessarily approach one
day the state of civilization achieved by
those peoples who are most enlightened,
freest, and most emancipated from prej-
udice, such as the French and the Anglo-
Americans? Will we necessarily see the
gradual disappearance of that vast dis-
tance now separating these peoples
from the servitude of nations subjected
to kings, the barbarism of African tribes,
the ignorance of savages?
Are there regions of the globe where
the inhabitants have been condemned
by their environment never to enjoy lib-
erty, never to exercise their reason?
Do the differences in enlightenment,
resources, or wealth so far observed be-
tween the different classes within civi-
lized peoples–the inequality that the
initial advances of society augmented
and may even have produced–derive
from the very nature of civilization or
from the current imperfections of the
social art? Must these differences con-
tinually diminish, giving way to the real
equality that is the ultimate goal of the
social art, that of reducing the very ef-
fects of natural differences in individual
capacities while allowing for the contin-
uation only of an inequality useful to the
common interest because it will foster
the progress of civilization, formazione scolastica,
and industry without entailing depend-
ence, humiliation, or impoverishment?
In other words, will human beings ad-
vance toward a situation in which all will
have the knowledge necessary to act ac-
cording to their own reason in the com-
mon affairs of life, to remain free of prej-
udices, and to comprehend their rights
and exercise them according to their
judgment and their conscience? Will
they approach that state in which all will
be able to secure the means of providing
for their needs, and in which stupidity
and misery will at last be only accidental
rather than the habitual condition of
part of society?
Might it also be the case that the hu-
man species will necessarily better itself
through new discoveries in the sciences
and the arts and, as an inevitable conse-
quence, in the means of individual well-
being and common prosperity; through
progress in the principles of conduct and
the practice of morality; or through opti-
mization of the intellectual, moral, E
physical capacities that may result from
improving the instruments that intensify
these capacities and guide their use, O
even the natural constitution of human-
kind?
In answering these three questions, we
will ½nd that past experience, observa-
tion of the progress made so far by the
sciences and by civilization, and analysis
of the advance of the human mind and
the development of its capacities yield
the strongest grounds for believing that
nature has set no limit to our hopes.
A glance at the present state of the
globe reveals, in the ½rst place, that the
principles of the French Constitution are
accepted already by every enlightened
persona. We see these principles now too
widespread and too ½rmly professed for
the efforts of tyrants and priests to pre-
vent their gradually penetrating the huts
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of the enslaved, where they will soon re-
awaken the vestiges of good sense and
the silent indignation that constant hu-
miliation and terror fail to stifle in the
soul of the oppressed.
In considering different nations, we
shall see in each one the particular ob-
stacles opposing this revolution or the
conditions favoring it. We shall identify
those nations in which it will be brought
about peacefully by the perhaps belated
wisdom of their governments, and those
in which it will be rendered more violent
by the resistance of governments that
will inevitably be swept up in its terrible
and rapid upheavals.
Can there be any doubt that good
sense or the absurd divisions among the
European nations will further the slow
but inevitable effects of the progress of
their colonies, resulting soon in the in-
dependence of the New World? Or
that the European population, rapidly
increasing over this immense territory,
will civilize or cause the disappearance,
even without conquest, of the savage
nations that still occupy vast regions of
Esso?
Review the history of our enterprises
and settlements in Africa and Asia and
you will see our commercial monopo-
lies, our betrayals, our bloodthirsty con-
tempt for people of another color or
creed, the insolence of our usurpations,
and the extravagant proselytizing or the
intrigues of our priests destroying the
sentiment of respect and goodwill ini-
tially inspired by the superiority of our
knowledge and the bene½ts of our com-
merce.
But the moment is surely approaching
when we shall stop appearing to them
only as corruptors and tyrants and be-
come their useful instruments or gener-
ous liberators.
Sugar cultivation, as it is established in
the immense African continent, will de-
stroy the shameful exploitation that has
corrupted and depopulated that conti-
nent for two centuries.
Already, in Great Britain, friends of
humanity have set an example; and if
the Machiavellian government of this
country, forced to respect public reason,
has not dared oppose it, what can we not
expect from this same spirit once a ser-
vile and corrupt constitution has been
reformed and rendered worthy of a hu-
mane and generous nation? Will France
not hasten to imitate these undertakings
dictated in equal measure by philanthro-
py and European interests properly un-
derstood? Spice production has been
introduced in the French islands, in Gui-
ana, and in some English possessions,
and one will soon see the collapse of the
monopoly in this trade the Dutch have
maintained by so many betrayals, ag-
gressions, and crimes. These European
nations will ½nally learn that exclusive
trading companies are only a form of tax
imposed on them to give their govern-
ments a new instrument of tyranny.
Then the European peoples, limiting
themselves to free commerce, and too
enlightened regarding their own rights
to disregard those of other peoples, will
respect the independence they have
hitherto violated so arrogantly. Their
settlements will no longer be ½lled with
government favorites pro½ting from a
place or a privilege as they rush to accu-
mulate a treasure through brigandage or
treachery in order to get back to Europe
to buy titles and honors. Invece, Essi
will be populated by industrious persons
traveling to these bene½cent climates in
search of the prosperity that has eluded
them in their own country. Liberty will
hold these individuals there and ambi-
tion will no longer draw them home. As
a result, these outposts for bandits will
become colonies of citizens spreading to
Africa and Asia the principles and prac-
Sketch for
a Historical
Picture of
the Progress
del
Umano
Mind
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Condorcet
SU
progress
tices of European liberty, knowledge,
and reason. In place of the monks who
brought these peoples nothing but
shameful superstition, ½lling them with
revulsion against the threat of a new
domination, we shall see individuals
disseminating among these nations the
truths useful to their happiness and en-
lightening them as to their interests and
their rights. Zeal for truth is also a pas-
sion, and it will extend its efforts to dis-
tant regions when it no longer sees itself
surrounded at shorter range by gross
prejudices to combat and shameful er-
rors to dissipate.
In these vast regions there are numer-
ous peoples who seem to be waiting only
to receive from us the means to become
civilized, only to ½nd brothers among
Europeans and to become their friends
and disciples. There are nations under
the yoke of sacred despots or benighted
conquerors who have been crying out for
liberators for so many centuries. There
are still almost savage tribes held back
from the enjoyments of civilization by
the harshness of their climate, which in
turn deters those who would like to ac-
quaint them with these bene½ts. There
are conquering hordes that know no law
but force, nor occupation but brigand-
age. The progress of the latter two
groups will be slower and stormier; it is
even possible that their numbers will
diminish as they ½nd themselves pushed
back by the civilized nations, and that
they will end up gradually disappearing,
or being lost in the midst of these
nazioni.
We shall show how these develop-
ments will be an ineluctable result, non
only of European progress but also of
the liberty that the French and North
American republics have both the real
interest and the power to bring to Afri-
can and Asian commerce, and how they
must necessarily spring either from
the newly acquired good sense of the
European nations or from their obsti-
nate attachment to their commercial
prejudices.
We shall demonstrate that a new Tar-
tar invasion from Asia is the only cir-
cumstance that could prevent this revo-
lution, and that such an event is no lon-
ger possible. In the meantime, every-
thing is leading to the prompt collapse
of the great religions of the East. Aban-
doned almost everywhere to the people,
infected by the degradation of their min-
isters, and already viewed by powerful
men in some countries as mere political
inventions, these religions no longer
threaten to keep human reason hope-
lessly enslaved and in eternal infancy.
The advance of these peoples should
be more rapid and assured than ours be-
cause they should receive from us what
we have had to discover, and because
they should only need to be able to fol-
low the explanations and proofs we offer
orally and in books to grasp the simple
truths and certain methods we have at-
tained only after long error. If the prog-
ress accomplished by the Greeks was
lost to other nations, we must blame a
lack of communication among peoples
and the tyrannical domination of the
Romans. But once mutual needs have
brought all humanity together; once the
most powerful nations have included
among their political principles a com-
mitment to equality among societies as
among individuals, respect for the inde-
pendence of weaker states, and a hu-
mane concern for ignorance and misery;
and once maxims fostering the action
and energies of human faculties replace
those tending to inhibit them, will it
then still be possible to fear that parts of
the globe remain inaccessible to enlight-
enment, or that the pride of despotism
can oppose to the truth barriers that will
remain insurmountable for very long?
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Sketch for
a Historical
Picture of
the Progress
del
Umano
Mind
The time will therefore come when the
sun shines only on free human beings
who recognize no other master but their
reason; when tyrants and slaves, priests
and their benighted or hypocritical min-
ions exist only in the history books and
the theater, and our only concern with
them is to pity their victims and their
dupes, maintain a useful vigilance moti-
vated by horror at their excesses, E
know how to recognize and stifle, by the
weight of reason, the ½rst seeds of super-
stition and tyranny that ever dare to re-
appear.
In reviewing the history of societies, we
will have occasion to show that there is
often a great gap between the rights the
law recognizes as belonging to citizens
and the rights they actually enjoy, be-
tween the equality established by politi-
cal institutions and that existing among
individuals. We shall point out that this
was one of the principal causes of the
destruction of liberty in the ancient re-
publics, the upheavals that disrupted
them, and the weakness that delivered
them over to foreign tyrants.
These disparities have three principal
causes: inequality of wealth; inequality
of condition between the individual who
has assured means of subsistence trans-
missible to his family and the individual
for whom these means depend on his
lifespan or, Piuttosto, on the length of time
during which he is able to work; E
½nally, inequality of instruction.
It will therefore be necessary to show
that these three kinds of real inequality
must diminish continuously–without,
Tuttavia, being completely eliminated.
For they have natural and necessary
causes which it would be absurd and
dangerous to try to destroy; and one
could not even attempt to eliminate
their effects without opening up more
potent sources of inequality and com-
mitting more direct and disastrous vio-
lations of human rights.
It is easy to prove that there is a natu-
ral tendency toward equality of wealth,
and that an excessive disproportion
among fortunes cannot exist, or must
quickly come to an end, unless civil laws
establish arti½cial means of perpetuating
and combining them. Inequality will di-
minish if liberty of commerce and in-
dustry destroys the advantage that any
restrictive law or ½scal privilege confers
on accumulated wealth; if taxes on con-
tracts and agreements, restrictions on
their freedom, their subjection to cum-
bersome formalities, E, ½nally, the un-
certainty and obligatory cost of securing
their execution do not impede the activi-
ty of the poor and swallow up their
skimpy capital. It will diminish provided
public administration does not open to
some citizens abundant sources of opu-
lence that are closed to others; provided
prejudices and the spirit of avarice we
associate with old age do not govern
marriage arrangements. And it will di-
minish if simplicity of manners and wise
institutions make wealth no longer the
means of satisfying vanity or ambition–
without, Tuttavia, issuing in a misguid-
ed austerity that prevents its use in the
search for life’s enjoyments and as a re-
source for preserving them once they
have been obtained.
Turn to the enlightened European na-
tions and compare the current size of
their populations with the extent of their
territories. Note the distribution of work
and of the means of subsistence obtain-
ing in their agriculture and industry. Noi
shall see that it would be impossible to
keep subsistence at this same level–and
hence, necessarily, impossible to main-
tain the same population size–if a great
number of individuals ceased to rely al-
most entirely for their needs, and those
of their family, on their industry and the
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Condorcet
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progress
yield from any capital invested in acquir-
ing it or making it more productive. Yet
preservation of either of these resources
depends on the life and even the health
of the head of each family; it becomes
an income subject to his life chances, O
even more contingent than that. It fol-
lows that there is a very real difference
between the class of people in this situa-
tion and the class of those whose re-
sources are not subject to the same risks
because their needs are supplied either
by revenue from land or by interest on
capital almost independent of their in-
dustry.
There is therefore a necessary cause
of inequality, dependence, even misery,
which ceaselessly threatens the most
numerous and most active class in our
societies.
We shall show that this cause can be
destroyed in large part by opposing
chance to chance itself: by guaranteeing
to someone who reaches old age assis-
tance that is produced by his own sav-
ing, augmented by those of individuals
who contributed in the same way but
died before needing to harvest the ben-
e½ts; by using the same principle of
compensation to provide women and
children who lose a husband or father
with a similar income acquired at the
same cost, whether it be for families af-
flicted by a premature death or for those
whose head survives longer; or even by
building up for children who attain the
age to work for themselves, and to start
a new family, the bene½t of a capital
necessary to the development of their
industry, a sum that will have increased
at the expense of those prevented by pre-
mature death from reaching this point.
We owe the idea of these methods to the
application of mathematical calculation
to the probabilities of life and to ½nan-
cial investment, and they have already
been employed successfully, though not
yet to the extent and in the variety of
forms that would make them really use-
ful, not simply to a few individuals but
to the entire mass of the society they
would free from that periodic ruin of a
great number of families which is an
ever-recurring source of corruption and
misery.
We shall explain that institutional ar-
rangements of this kind can be formed
by the social power and become one of
its greatest bene½ts, but can also be cre-
ated by private associations which will
be formed safely once the principles gov-
erning the organization of such institu-
tions have become more widely known
and the errors that have destroyed a
great number of them are no longer to
be feared.
[We shall set forth other means of se-
curing equality, whether by ensuring
that credit ceases to be a privilege so ex-
clusively reserved for great wealth but
retains a no less solid foundation, or by
making industrial progress and commer-
cial activity less dependent on the exis-
tence of great capitalists. We will owe
these means, pure, to the application of
mathematical methods.]
The equality of instruction one can
hope to attain, and which should be suf-
½cient, would exclude all dependence,
whether forced or voluntary. We shall
demonstrate that the present state of hu-
man knowledge allows easy means of
arriving at this goal, even for those indi-
viduals able to study only for a small
number of their early years, and for a
few leisure hours during the rest of their
life. We shall show that a good choice of
the knowledge to be taught, and of the
methods for teaching it, will make possi-
ble the instruction of an entire people in
everything one needs to know to manage
a household, administer one’s affairs,
and freely develop one’s industry and
one’s capacities; to know, defend, E
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Sketch for
a Historical
Picture of
the Progress
del
Umano
Mind
exercise one’s rights; to learn one’s du-
ties, in order to ful½ll them well; A
judge one’s actions and those of others
according to one’s own lights and be de-
nied none of the higher and more re-
½ned sentiments that honor human na-
ture; to avoid blind dependence on those
to whom one is obliged to entrust one’s
affairs or the exercise of one’s rights,
and to have the capacity to choose them
and supervise them; to be no longer the
dupe of those popular errors that tor-
ment one’s life with superstitious fears
and chimerical hopes; to defend oneself
from prejudices by the force of reason
alone; and ½nally, to escape the seduc-
tions of charlatanism that would en-
snare one’s wealth, health, and freedom
of opinion and conscience, under the
pretext of promising enrichment, heal-
ing, or salvation.
From that point on, the inhabitants of
a single country will no longer be differ-
entiated by their use of cruder or more
re½ned language. They will be able to
govern themselves according to their
own lights. They will no longer be limit-
ed to unthinking acquaintance with the
procedures of an art or the routine of a
profession. They will no longer depend,
for the simplest matters or the most ele-
mentary instruction, on skillful men
who dominate them by virtue of their
necessary superiority. Real equality must
be the result, since differences in knowl-
edge and talents will no longer raise a
barrier between individuals whose senti-
menti, ideas, and language will permit
them to understand one another, who
may wish to be instructed by others but
will not need to be directed by them, E
who will be able to entrust responsibility
for government to the more enlightened
among them without being forced to
abandon it to them in blind con½dence.
In this way, superiority becomes ad-
vantageous even to those who do not
share it, existing for them and not
against them. The natural difference
in capacities among individuals whose
understanding has not been developed
produces charlatans and dupes, IL
clever and the gullible, even among the
savages. This same difference doubtless
exists in societies where instruction has
become truly general, but in this case it
entails no more than the differentiation
between enlightened individuals and
those right-minded ones who recognize
the value of knowledge without being
dazzled by it, between talent or genius
and the good sense that knows how to
appreciate and bene½t from them. E
even if this difference were to become
greater in terms of the relative strength
and extent of individual capacities, Esso
would not have a more marked effect on
the relations among individuals and on
factors affecting their independence and
their happiness.
These various causes of equality do
not operate in isolation. They combine,
interact, and reinforce one another,
jointly producing a stronger, surer, E
more constant action. More equal in-
struction fosters greater equality in in-
dustry and hence in wealth; economic
equality necessarily promotes equality
of instruction; and there is a mutual re-
lationship between equality among peo-
ples and that among individuals.
In short, well-organized instruction
corrects the natural inequality in human
capacities rather than strengthening it,
just as good laws remedy natural in-
equality in the means of subsistence,
and just as liberty will be more extensive
and more entire in societies where insti-
tutions have led to such equality than it
was in the state of independence enjoyed
by the savages, even though it will be
subject to a regular constitution. IL
social art will thus have ful½lled its pur-
pose, that of assuring and extending for
Dædalus Summer 2004
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progress
all the enjoyment of the common rights
to which nature calls them.
The real advantages to result from the
progress we may hope for with virtual
certainty, as we have now seen, can have
no other limit than the very perfecting of
the human species. This must be so be-
cause, as the various causes of equality
extend their effect to vaster means of
providing for our needs, to a broader
range of instruction, and to a more com-
plete liberty, the resulting equality will
be more substantial and closer to em-
bracing everything truly affecting hu-
man happiness.
It follows that we can only know the ex-
tent or limit of our hopes in examining
the advance and laws of this ameliora-
zione.
No one has ever thought that the mind
could exhaust all the facts of nature or
reach the ultimate means of precision in
measuring and analyzing these facts, IL
relationships of objects one to another,
and all the possible combinations of
ideas. The relations of magnitude alone
–quantity and extension, the permuta-
tions of this single idea–form a system
that is already too immense for the hu-
man mind ever to be able to grasp in its
entirety, or for the part of this system
our intelligence will have penetrated
ever to be greater than that remaining
unknown to it. The conclusion has
therefore been drawn that, since human-
kind will only ever be able to know a
fraction of the objects its intelligence is
capable of grasping, it is bound to reach
a point at which the number and compli-
cation of the facts already known will
have absorbed all its forces and any fur-
ther progress will become really impos-
sible.
But as facts multiply, the human mind
learns to classify them and reduce them
to more general facts, and the instru-
ments and methods used to observe and
measure them acquire a new precision.
As more relations become known among
a greater number of objects, it becomes
possible to subsume them under more
general relationships and express them
in simpler terms, presenting them in
ways that make it possible to grasp a
greater number with the same brain-
power and no greater force of attention.
As the mind reaches more complicated
combinazioni, simpler formulae make
them easier to grasp. In consequence,
truths ½rst discovered by the greatest
effort, and initially understood only by
individuals capable of profound reflec-
zione, are soon developed and proved by
methods that are no longer beyond per-
sons of average intelligence. If the meth-
ods that lead to new combinations are
exhausted, or if their application to
questions still unresolved demands ef-
fort exceeding the time or powers of re-
searchers, soon more general methods
and more simple means appear to open
a new ½eld to genius. The power and
range of human minds will have re-
mained the same, but the instruments
they can employ will have been multi-
plied and improved, and the language
that ½xes and determines their ideas will
have been able to acquire more precision
and generality. And in contrast to me-
chanics, where force may be increased
only by diminishing velocity, the meth-
ods directing genius in the discovery of
new truths will have added both to its
force and to the rapidity of its opera-
zioni.
Since these changes are the necessary
consequence of progress in the knowl-
edge of detailed truths, and since the
need for new resources simultaneously
produces the means of obtaining them,
it follows that the real accumulation of
truths forming the system of the empiri-
cal, experimental, and mathematical sci-
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ences can grow constantly, and all the
parts of this same system will be en-
hanced even assuming only the same
strength, activity, and extent of human
faculties.
In applying these general considera-
tions to the different sciences, we shall
½nd examples of successive advances in
each that leave no doubt regarding the
certainty of those we must expect. Nel
case of those sciences regarded by preju-
dice as closest to being exhausted, we
shall make a particular point of identify-
ing the advances that promise to be most
probable and most imminent. We shall
elucidate everything that a more general
and philosophical application of the
mathematical sciences to all human
knowledge will necessarily add to the
extent, precision, and unity of the entire
system of this knowledge. We shall ex-
plain how more universal instruction in
each country must expand our hopes by
giving a greater number of individuals
the elementary knowledge that can in-
spire their taste for a particular subject
of study and foster their ability to make
progress in it. In the most enlightened
countries, scarcely a ½ftieth of those to
whom nature has given talents receive
the instruction necessary to develop
them. We shall show that our hopes of
progress will increase even further as
more widespread prosperity allows
more individuals to devote themselves
to these occupations, and as the number
of individuals destined to push back the
limits of the sciences by their discoveries
necessarily grows in the same propor-
zione.
It will be seen how much this equality
of instruction, and the equality that
must be established among the various
nazioni, would accelerate the progress
of those sciences in which advances de-
pend on observations repeated in greater
number and extended over a larger area;
how much mineralogy, botany, zoology,
and meteorology would bene½t as a re-
sult; and what a great disparity there is
in these sciences between the weakness
of the methods that have nevertheless
led us to so many useful and important
truths, and the power of those that could
then be employed.
We shall explain how the advantage
of being cultivated by a large number
of individuals extends even to those sci-
ences in which discoveries are achieved
by meditation alone, since progress in
these sciences can be made through
those improvements in detail that do
not require an inventor’s brainpower
and become evident upon simple reflec-
zione.
Turning to the useful arts, we shall see
that their progress is bound to follow
that of the sciences upon which they
depend for their theory, and to have no
other limits; that their techniques are
susceptible of the same improvements
and simpli½cations as scienti½c meth-
ods; that instruments, macchine, E
specializations steadily increase human
strength and skill, augmenting both the
perfection and precision of products
while diminishing the time and labor
needed to achieve them. The obstacles
still opposing the progress of these arts
will disappear, along with the accidents
one will learn to anticipate and prevent,
and the dangers to health arising from
the work itself, from habitual practices,
or from climate.
Then an ever-smaller tract of land will
yield a quantity of more useful and valu-
able commodities; greater enjoyments
will be obtained with less consumption
of resources; the same industrial prod-
ucts will require less destruction of raw
materiali, or become more durable. It
will be possible to select, for each kind
of soil, the crop satisfying the greatest
needs, and to choose, among crops serv-
Sketch for
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progress
ing similar needs, those satisfying a
greater number of people with less work
and less real consumption. Così, con-
out any sacri½ce, the means of conserva-
tion and of economy in consumption
will follow the progress of the art of re-
producing various substances, processi-
ing them, and producing goods from
them.
Not only will the same plot of land
thus be able to feed more individuals,
but they will each be engaged in less ar-
duous but more productive occupations,
and better able to satisfy their needs.
As the progress of industry and wel-
fare leads to a more advantageous ratio
between human capacities and needs,
each generation will be brought to great-
er enjoyments, as a result either of this
progress or of the conservation of goods
produced earlier. Given the constitution
of the human species, Tuttavia, it fol-
lows that there will be an increase in the
number of individuals. Will there not
inevitably come a point, Perciò, at
which these two equally necessary laws
will clash and the growth in the number
of people will exceed the increase in
their resources? Is this not bound to lead
to a kind of oscillation between good
and evil, if not to the constant diminu-
tion of well-being and population that
would constitute a real retrogression?
Will this oscillation not become an en-
during cause of periodic misery in soci-
eties that have reached this point? Will
it not indicate the end point beyond
which further improvement would be-
come impossible, the limit to its better-
ment the human species would ½nally
reach after an immensity of centuries
and never be able to go beyond?
There is no one, surely, who fails to see
how distant this time is from us, but are
we not bound to reach it one day? È
equally impossible to pronounce for or
against the future reality of an event that
would occur only in an age when the hu-
man species would necessarily have ac-
quired knowledge we can scarcely imag-
ine. And who would dare guess what the
art of converting the elements into sub-
stances ½t for our use must one day
bring?
But supposing this limit must one day
be reached, there is nothing we need fear
as a result, either for the happiness of the
human species, or for its inde½nite im-
provement. If we assume that up to this
point the progress of reason will have
matched that of the sciences and the
arts, that the ridiculous prejudices of
superstition will have ceased to infuse
morality with a severity that corrupts
and degrades it rather than purifying and
elevating it, then humanity will know
that the obligations it has toward those
not yet born consist in giving them not
life but happiness. These obligations
pertain to the general welfare of the hu-
man species, of the society in which one
lives, of the family to which one is at-
tached, not to the childish idea of ½lling
the earth with useless and miserable
beings. Thus there could be a limit to
the possible quantity of foodstuffs, E
hence to the maximum population,
without this resulting in a premature de-
struction of some of those beings al-
ready living, which would be contrary
to nature and to social prosperity.
Discovery of the ½rst principles of
metaphysics, ethics, and politics, O
rather their exact analysis, is still recent.
Because knowledge of these principles
was preceded by a great number of par-
ticular truths, the prejudice that it has
reached its ultimate limit easily took
root. Because there were no more gross
errors to destroy or fundamental truths
to establish, it was assumed that there
was nothing left to do.
But it is easy to see how imperfect the
analysis of the intellectual and moral
faculties of humankind remains. Since
74
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knowledge of one’s individual duties de-
pends on understanding the effects of
one’s actions on the well-being of one’s
fellows and on the society to which one
belongs, it can therefore still be extend-
ed by more consistent, more probing,
and more precise observation of these
effects. Many questions remain to be
answered, many social relations to be
examined, before we will know precisely
the extent of the individual’s rights, E
of the rights the social state gives to all
in relation to each. Have we yet estab-
lished with any precision the limits on
rights, either those of different societies
in wartime, those of societies over their
members in times of division and disor-
der, or those of individuals or sponta-
neous associations at the point of their
free and original formation or when
their dissolution becomes necessary?
Turning to the theory that must direct
the application of these principles and
serve as the basis for the social art, is it
not still clearly necessary to reach a pre-
cision to which these ½rst truths cannot
be susceptible when stated in absolutely
general form? Have we reached the
point at which we can base all the provi-
sions of our laws on justice or a proven
and recognized utility, and not on vague,
uncertain, and arbitrary opinions or
alleged political advantages? Have we
determined the precise rules for choos-
ing with assurance, among the almost
in½nite number of possible arrange-
ments under which the general princi-
ples of equality and natural rights would
be respected, those which would more
fully guarantee the preservation of these
rights, allow great leeway for their exer-
cise and enjoyment, and ensure most
effectively the peace and well-being of
individuals and the strength, tranquility,
and prosperity of nations?
The application of combinatorial the-
ory and the calculus of probabilities to
these sciences promises even more sub-
stantial progress because it offers the
sole means of giving their results an al-
most mathematical precision and of
evaluating their degree of certainty or
likelihood. In the absence of calculation,
admittedly, the facts upon which these
results rest may sometimes lead us to
general truths on the basis of observa-
tion alone, and they may on occasion
teach us whether the effect produced by
a given cause has been positive or not.
But unless it has been possible to count
or weigh the facts, or to subject the ef-
fects to precise measurement, one will
not be able to gauge the extent of the
good or evil arising from this cause. IL
good and evil might almost balance out,
or the difference between them might
not be very great, in which case one
would be unable even to determine with
any certainty which way the scale might
tip. Without the application of mathe-
matical calculation, it would often be
impossible to choose with any con½-
dence between two arrangements for
attaining the same goal, because their
relative advantages might not be obvi-
ously disproportionate. Lacking such a
resource, these sciences would remain
crude and limited for want of methods
sophisticated enough to grasp the elu-
sive truth, or of techniques reliable
enough to mine the depths at which
part of their wealth lies hidden.
These applications of mathematics
remain still elementary, one might say,
despite the happy efforts of some mathe-
maticians. They will open up to succeed-
ing generations a source of knowledge as
inexhaustible as the science of calcula-
tion itself, as vast as the number of com-
binations, relationships, and facts that
can be made subject to it.
There is another advance to be made
in these sciences that is no less impor-
tant: perfecting their language, che è
still so vague and obscure. This can give
them the advantage of becoming truly
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progress
popular, even in their elementary form.
Genius can overcome the imprecision of
scienti½c languages along with other
obstacles; it recognizes the truth despite
the strange mask that conceals or dis-
guises it. But will the individual who can
only devote a few moments to his in-
struction be able to acquire and retain
the simplest notions if they are dis½g-
ured by an imprecise language? IL
less able he is to assemble and combine
ideas, the more he needs them to be ex-
act and precise; his own intelligence
cannot supply him with a system of
truths that will protect him against er-
ror; and his mind, lacking the strength
and re½nement that comes from long
exercise, is unable to seize the feeble rays
that slip through the obscurities and am-
biguities of an imperfect and perverted
lingua.
Human beings cannot enlighten them-
selves regarding the nature and develop-
ment of their moral sentiments, IL
principles of ethics and the natural moti-
vations that bring their actions into ac-
cordance with them, their interests as
individuals or as members of a society,
without also making progress in the
practice of morality as real as that in the
science itself. Is not interest badly un-
derstood the most frequent cause of
actions contrary to the common good?
Is the violence of the passions not fre-
quently the effect of habits embraced
only as the result of miscalculation, O
of ignorance of the means of resisting
their ½rst impulses, calming them,
and redirecting and controlling their
action?
Consider the habit of reflecting upon
one’s own conduct and listening to one’s
reason and one’s conscience as one does
so, the experience of those gentle senti-
ments that blend our happiness with
that of others: are these not the neces-
sary result of a well-conceived study of
morality, a greater equality in the condi-
tions of the social pact? The sense of
one’s dignity that belongs to the free
persona, an upbringing based on a devel-
oped knowledge of the constitution of
our moral being: must these not render
common among almost all of us those
principles of a strict and pure justice,
those habitual movements of an active
and enlightened benevolence, of a deli-
cate and generous sensibility? Their
seeds have been placed by nature in all
our hearts, and they await only the sweet
influence of enlightenment and liberty
to develop within us. Just as the mathe-
matical and physical sciences serve to
improve the arts employed to provide
for our simplest needs, is it not equally
within the necessary order of nature that
the progress of the moral and political
sciences exercise a similar effect on the
motives that direct our sentiments and
our actions?
Is it not the case that improvement in
the laws and public institutions resulting
from the progress of the moral and polit-
ical sciences will have the effect of har-
monizing and identifying the common
interest of each individual with the com-
mon interest of all? Is it not the goal of
the social art to destroy this apparent
opposizione? Will not the society whose
constitution and laws conform most
exactly to the voice of reason and nature
be the place where virtue will be easiest,
the temptations to stray from it weakest
and most rare?
What vicious habit is there, what prac-
tice contrary to good faith, what crime
even, that cannot be shown to derive its
origin and ½rst cause from the legisla-
zione, istituzioni, and prejudices accord-
ing to which it is observed?
In short, will the well-being that fol-
lows from the advances of the useful arts
when they are based on sound theory, O
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from the progress of a just legislation
based on the truths of the moral and
political sciences, not dispose individu-
als toward a sense of humanity, benevo-
lence, and justice?
These observations will be developed
more fully in the work to follow. Do they
not prove that moral goodness–the nec-
essary result of the human constitution
–is susceptible like all the faculties to in-
de½nite improvement, and that nature
has linked truth, happiness, and virtue
together by an indissoluble chain?
The advances of the human mind
most important for the general happi-
ness must include the complete elimina-
tion of the prejudices that have estab-
lished an inequality of rights between
the two sexes that is fatal even to the one
it is presumed to favor. We would look in
vain for grounds to justify this inequality
in terms of differences in the physical
organization of the sexes, or of a puta-
tive disparity in powers of intelligence
or in moral sensibility. Its only origin is
abuse of force; subsequent attempts to
excuse it have been empty sophistries.
We shall show how much the destruc-
tion of the practices authorized by this
prejudice, and of the laws it has dictated,
can contribute to the enhancement of
family happiness, and to making com-
mon and habitual the domestic virtues
that are the ½rst foundation of all the
others; how much this change can foster
the progress of instruction, and especial-
ly render it truly general, either because
it will be extended to the two sexes more
equally, or by virtue of the fact that it
cannot become general, even for men,
without the support of mothers of fami-
lies. Would this belated tribute to equity
and good sense not stifle a fertile source
of injustices, cruelties, and crimes by
eliminating so dangerous an opposition
between the liveliest and most irrepress-
ible natural inclination and our duties
as humans, or the interests of society?
Would it not realize what has so far been
only a fantasy: national manners that
are sweet and pure, formed not by priva-
tions arising from pride, by hypocritical
appearances, by restrictions imposed by
the fear of shame or religious terrors,
but by habits that are freely acquired,
inspired by nature, and declared by
reason?
The most enlightened peoples, Rif-
claiming the right to expend their blood
and their wealth, will gradually learn to
see war as the deadliest scourge and the
greatest of crimes. The ½rst conflicts to
disappear will be those into which peo-
ples are dragged by the usurpers of na-
tional sovereignty in support of alleged
hereditary rights.
Peoples will know that they cannot
become conquerors without losing their
own liberty; that permanent confedera-
tions are the sole means of maintaining
their independence; that they must seek
security, not power. Commercial preju-
dices will gradually dissipate; false mer-
cantile interests will lose their dreadful
power to cover the earth with blood, ru-
ining nations under the pretext of en-
riching them. As peoples ½nally come to
closer agreement on the principles of
politics and ethics, as each ½nds that its
own advantage consists in offering for-
eigners a more equal share of the goods
it owes to nature and its industry, all the
causes producing, envenoming, and per-
petuating national hatreds will gradually
vanish, no longer to serve as fuel or pre-
text for the fury of war.
Institutions better devised than the
projects for perpetual peace that have
occupied the leisure and consoled the
spirit of some philosophers will acceler-
ate the progress of this brotherhood
among nations. Wars between peoples,
like assassinations, will be numbered
among those monstrous atrocities that
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progress
humiliate and revolt nature, and bring
enduring disgrace to the country and the
century whose annals they have stained.
We have already observed, when we
discussed the ½ne arts in Greece, Italy,
and France, that it is necessary to distin-
guish what in an artistic work really be-
longs to the progress of the art and what
is owing to the talent of the particular
artist. We shall point out here the prog-
ress still to be expected in the arts,
whether as a result of progress in philos-
ophy and the sciences, of more numer-
ous and thorough observations of the
object, effects, and techniques of the
arts, or of the destruction of the preju-
dices that have restricted their sphere
and kept them still under the yoke of
authority, which the sciences and philos-
ophy have already cast off. We shall con-
sider whether the arts must reach the
point of exhaustion, as some have be-
lieved, once the most sublime and mov-
ing beauty has been caught, the most fe-
licitous subjects have been treated, IL
simplest and most striking arrangements
employed, the most vivid and most gen-
erous characters portrayed, the strongest
passions and their truest and most natu-
ral expressions represented, along with
the most imposing truths and the most
brilliant images. Are the arts con-
demned, in short, whatever fertility one
attributes to their techniques, to the
eternal monotony of imitating the ½rst
models?
We shall make clear that this view is
no more than a prejudice born of the
tendency of writers and artists to judge
individuals instead of appreciating
works. If there must be a loss of the re-
flective pleasure produced by comparing
works of art from different centuries or
different countries, or by admiring the
efforts or the successes of genius, the en-
joyment to be derived from these works
78
Dædalus Summer 2004
considered in themselves must never-
theless be as intense even when the artist
can claim less merit to bringing them to
perfection. As artistic works truly wor-
thy of preservation multiply and become
more perfect, each generation will exer-
cise its curiosity and capacity for admi-
ration on those deserving preference;
others will gradually be forgotten; E
the enjoyment to be derived from the
simplest and most striking manifesta-
tions of beauty, those that were caught
the ½rst, will not exist less for the new
generations who must ½nd them among
more modern creations.
The progress of the sciences guarantees
that of the art of instruction, which in
turn accelerates scienti½c advance. IL
constant action of this reciprocal influ-
ence must be counted among the most
dynamic and powerful causes of the
amelioration of the human species. UN
young man leaving school today knows
more mathematics than Newton ac-
quired by profound study or discovered
through his genius; he is able to utilize
the instrument of the calculus with a
facility then unknown. The same obser-
vation is applicable to all the sciences,
though in unequal measure. As each de-
velops, so do the means of expressing
more concisely the proofs of a greater
number of its truths, and of making
them easier to understand. In conse-
quence, new advances in the sciences
notwithstanding, not only do individu-
als of equal genius still reach the level of
the current state of knowledge at a simi-
lar age, but what each generation can
learn in the same length of time, con
the same brainpower and the same at-
tention, necessarily increases. Allo stesso modo,
the elementary part of each science, Quello
which all can master, becomes more and
more extensive, thus comprising more
fully the knowledge each individual
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must have to conduct his everyday life,
or exercise his reason with complete
independence.
In the political sciences there is an or-
der of truths that can only be useful, es-
pecially among free peoples (Quale,
within a few generations, will mean all
peoples), when they are generally known
and acknowledged. The influence of the
progress of these sciences on the liberty
and prosperity of nations must therefore
be measured, to some degree, by the
number of these truths that become
common to all minds as a result of ele-
mentary instruction. Thus the constant
expansion of elementary instruction in
these sciences, linked as it is to their nec-
essary progress, offers us an improve-
ment in the destinies of the human spe-
cies that can be regarded as inde½nite,
since its only limits are those of this
same progress.
We still have to discuss two general
means that must influence the improve-
ment of the art of instruction as well as
the advance of the sciences. One is the
more extensive and less imperfect use of
what might be called technical methods;
the other, the establishment of a univer-
sal language.
By technical methods, I understand
the art of bringing together a large quan-
tity of data in a systematic arrangement
making it possible to see their relation-
ships immediately, grasp combinations
among them rapidly, and form new per-
mutations easily.
We shall set forth the principles and
show the utility of this art still in its in-
fancy. As it is developed, it will offer the
advantage of bringing together within a
small table what would often be dif½cult
to show as readily, or as well, in a very
lengthy book. Alternatively, it will pro-
vide the even more precious means of
presenting isolated facts in the order
most suitable to derive general results
from them. We shall explain how, con
the aid of a small number of these tables,
whose use will be easily learned, individ-
uals who have not been able to go far
enough beyond the most elementary in-
struction to master detailed knowledge
useful in common life will ½nd it possi-
ble to locate this knowledge at will
whenever the need arises. We shall also
show how use of these same methods
can facilitate elementary instruction in
any ½eld where it is based on a systemat-
ic order of truths or on a sequence of ob-
servations or facts.
A universal language is one that uses
signs to represent either real objects, O
those well-de½ned aggregates of simple
and general ideas that are found to be
the same (or can take form equally) In
the understanding of all individuals, O
the general relations between these
ideas, the operations of the human
mente, the procedures particular to each
science, or the techniques of the arts.
People who knew these signs, the meth-
ods of combining them, and the princi-
ples underlying them would understand
what is written in this language and be
able to express it with equal facility in
the language of their own country.
Clearly, this language could be used to
set out the theory of a science or the
rules of an art, to report an experiment
or new observation, the invention of a
procedure, or the discovery of a truth
or method. As in algebra, signs already
known would supply the means of ex-
plaining the precise meaning of new
ones when they are needed.
A language of this kind would not
share the disadvantages of a scienti½c
idiom different from common usage.
We have already observed that use of
such an idiom would necessarily have
the effect of dividing society into two
unequal classes of people: those who
know the scienti½c language and thus
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79
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progress
possess the key to all the sciences, E
those who have been unable to learn it
and consequently ½nd themselves utter-
ly unable to acquire knowledge. The uni-
versal language, in contrast, would be
learned with a science itself, as in alge-
bra; the sign would be understood at the
same time as the object, the idea, or the
procedure it represents. An individual
who had acquired the elements of a sci-
ence and wanted to study it further
would ½nd in books not only truths he
could understand with the help of the
signs whose precise meaning he already
knew, but also the explanation of new
signs necessary to reach other truths.
We shall demonstrate that there is
nothing chimerical about the idea of
forming such a language, provided it is
limited to the expression of simple and
precise propositions of the kind that
form the system of a science or the prac-
tice of an art. Its creation would already
be easy for a large number of objects,
and the strongest obstacle against ex-
tending it to others would be the some-
what humiliating necessity of accepting
how few precise ideas and well-de½ned
notions we have yet to agree on.
We shall show how this language, con-
stantly improving and daily extending
its range, would bring to bear on all the
objects embraced by human intelligence
a rigor and precision that would make
knowledge of the truth easy and error
almost impossible. Then each science
would advance as surely as mathematics,
and the propositions forming its system
would acquire all the geometric certain-
ty permitted by the nature of its subject
and method.
All these causes of the amelioration of
the human species, all these means as-
suring it, must by their very nature exer-
cise a continuous action and constantly
extend their range.
We have outlined the proofs of this
here, and they will be developed more
fully and forcefully in the work to come.
We could therefore already conclude
that humankind is inde½nitely amelio-
rable. But so far we have assumed that it
will have the same faculties and the same
physical constitution. What then would
be the extent and certainty of our hopes
if we could believe that these natural
faculties and this physical constitution
themselves could also be improved?
This is the last question remaining for
us to consider.
Organic amelioration or deterioration
of vegetable and animal species may be
regarded as one of the general laws of
natura. This law extends to the human
species and surely no one will doubt that
progress in medical care, healthier nutri-
tion and accommodation, a mode of life
developing strength through exercise
without destroying it through excess,
E, ½nally, destruction of the two most
potent causes of degradation–misery
and excessive wealth–will inevitably
extend the average lifespan and assure
human beings more consistent health
and a more robust constitution. It seems
clear that advances in preventive medi-
cine, rendered more ef½cacious by the
progress of reason and of the social or-
der, will in the long run extinguish trans-
missible and contagious illnesses, COME
well as the common illnesses caused by
clima, foodstuffs, and working condi-
zioni. Nor will it be dif½cult to prove
that this same expectation must apply to
almost all other illnesses, whose distant
causes will one day probably be discov-
ered. Would it be absurd at this point to
imagine that this amelioration of the hu-
man species must be regarded as suscep-
tible of inde½nite progress, that a time
will come when death will be only a re-
sult of unusual accidents or the slower
and slower deterioration of vital forces,
80
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and even that the average interval be-
tween birth and this deterioration will
have no assignable limit? Human beings
will certainly not become immortal, Ma
can there not be an inde½nite increase in
the interval between the beginning of
life and the average point at which exis-
tence becomes dif½cult for them natu-
rally, without illness or accident? Since
we are speaking here of a progress that
can be represented with precision nu-
merically or diagrammatically, this is the
appropriate point at which to explicate
the two possible meanings of the term
inde½nite.
It might be that this average lifespan,
constantly increasing the further we
advance in time, expands by virtue of a
law according to which it continually
approaches a point of unlimited dura-
tion without ever reaching it. Or it
might be that it expands by virtue of a
law according to which, over the im-
mensity of centuries, it reaches a dura-
tion greater than any determinate limit
we might have assigned to it. In this lat-
ter case, the increase is truly inde½nite in
the most absolute sense, because there
exists no endpoint before which it must
stop. In the former case, the increase is
also inde½nite in relationship to us if we
cannot ½x the point it must always ap-
proach and can never reach, and espe-
cially if, knowing only that it can never
stop, we do not even know which of the
two senses of the term ‘inde½nite’
should be applied to it. This is precisely
the limit of our present knowledge as
to the potential ameliorability of the
human species, and hence the sense in
which we can call it inde½nite.
Così, in the example considered here,
we have to believe that the average hu-
man lifespan must increase constantly
unless this is prevented by physical revo-
lutions, but we do not know the limit
beyond which it cannot extend, or even
whether the laws of nature have ½xed
such a point.
As for physical faculties, the force,
adaptability, and delicacy of the senses,
are these not among the qualities whose
improvement in the individual can be
transmitted? Observation of the differ-
ent species of domestic animals leads us
to believe so, and we will be able to
con½rm this by direct study of human
beings.
Finalmente, can these same hopes be ex-
tended to intellectual and moral facul-
ties? Our parents pass on to us the ad-
vantages and defects of their physical
constitution, from which we derive dis-
tinctive bodily characteristics and dispo-
sitions to particular physical states. Can
they not also pass on to us that part of
physical organization governing intelli-
gence, strength of mind, emotional
energy, and moral sensibility? Is it not
plausible that in improving these quali-
ties education could affect this same
physical organization, modifying and
improving it? Analogy, analysis of the
development of human faculties, E
even some observed facts seem to prove
the reality of these conjectures, Quale
would extend even further the limits of
our hopes.
These are the questions to be exam-
ined in concluding the discussion of this
Tenth Epoch. And how welcome to the
philosopher is this picture of the human
race freed from all its chains, released
from the domination of chance and of
the enemies of its progress, advancing
with a ½rm and sure step in the path of
truth, virtue, and happiness! How this
spectacle consoles him for the errors,
crimes, and injustices that still de½le the
earth, of which he is often the victim! In
contemplation of this picture, he ½nds
the reward for his efforts on behalf of
the progress of reason and the defense
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81
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progress
of liberty. He dares thus to link these ef-
forts to the eternal chain of human des-
tinies, ½nding there the true reward of
virtue, the pleasure of having done some
lasting good which fate will no longer
destroy, bringing back prejudices and
slavery in a deadly swing of the pendu-
lum. This contemplation affords him an
asylum where the memory of his perse-
cutors cannot pursue him, where he
forgets humanity tormented and cor-
rupted by greed, fear, or envy, to live in
the mind with humanity restored to the
rights and dignity of its nature. There
he truly lives in communion with his
fellows, in a paradise that his reason
has been able to create and his love of
humankind enhances with the purest of
pleasures.
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