And, first, of its history. The recognition of this law has been
reserved for comparatively recent times. Like other general laws
governing the courses of Nature, it was unknown to Antiquity. The
ignorance and prejudice which then prevailed with regard to the earth,
the heavenly bodies, and their relations to the universe, found fit
companionship with the wild speculations concerning the Human Family.
The ignorant live only in the Present, whether of time or place. What
they see and observe bounds their knowledge. Thus to the early Greek
the heavens were upborne by the mountains, and the sun traversed daily
in fiery chariot from east to west. So things seemed to him. But the
true Destiny of the Human Family was as little comprehended.
Man, in his origin and history, was surrounded with fable; nor was
there any correct idea of the principles determining the succession
of events. Revolutions of states were referred sometimes to chance,
sometimes to certain innate elements of decay. Plutarch did not
hesitate to ascribe the triumphs of Rome, not to the operation of
immutable law, but to the fortune of the Republic. And Polybius, whom
Gibbon extols for wisdom and philosophical spirit, said that Carthage,
being so much older than Rome, felt her decay so much the sooner;
and the survivor, he announced, carried in her bosom the seeds of
mortality. The image of youth, manhood, and age was applied to nations.
Like mortals on earth, they were supposed to have a period of life,
and a length of thread spun by the Fates, strong at first, but thinner
and weaker with advancing time, till at last it was cut, and another
nation, with newly twisted thread, commenced its career.
In likening the life of a nation to the life of an individual man,
there was error, commended by seeming truth, not yet entirely banished.
It prevails still with many, who have not received the Law of Human
Progress, teaching that all revolutions and changes are but links in
the chain of development, or, it may be, turns in the grand _spiral_,
by which the unknown infinite Future is connected with the Past.
Nations have decayed, but never with the imbecility of age.
The ancients saw that there were changes, but did not detect the
principles governing them, while a favorite fable and popular
superstition conspired to turn attention back upon the Past, rather
than forward to the Future. In the dawn of Greece, Hesiod, standing
near the Father of Poetry, sang the descending mutations through
which Mankind had seemed to travel. First came the Golden Age, so
he fabled, when men lived secure and happy in pleasant association,
without discord, without care, without toil, without weariness, while
good of all kinds abounded, like the plentiful fruits which the earth
spontaneously supplied. This was followed by the Silver Age, with
a race inferior in form and disposition. Next was the Brazen Age,
still descending in the scale, when men became vehement and robust,
strong in body and stern in soul, building brazen houses, wielding
brazen weapons, prompt to war, but not yet entirely wicked. Last,
and unhappily his own, according to the poet, was the Iron Age, when
straightway all evil raged forth; neither by day nor yet by night, did
men rest from labor and sorrow; discord took the place of concord; the
pious, the just, and the good were without favor; the man of force and
the evil-doer were cherished; modesty and justice yielded to insolence
and wrong. War now prevailed, and men lived in wretchedness.[244]
[244] Hesiod, Opera et Dies, 109-201.
Such, according to the Greek poet, was the succession of changes
through which mankind had passed. This fable found a response. It was
repeated by philosophy and history. Plato adorned and illustrated it.
Strabo and Diodorus imparted to it their grave sanction. It was carried
to Rome, with the other spoils of Greece. It was reproduced by Ovid,
in flowing verses that have become a commonplace of literature. It was
recognized by the tender muse of Virgil, the sportive fancy of Horace,
and the stern genius of Juvenal. Songs and fables have ever exerted a
powerful control over human opinion; nor is it possible to estimate
the influence of this story in shaping unconsciously the thoughts of
mankind. It is easy to understand that the youth of Antiquity,--let me
say, too, the youth of later ages,--nay, of our own day, in our own
schools and colleges,--nurtured by this literature, should learn to
neglect the Future, and rather regard the Past. The words of Horace
have afforded a polished expression to this prejudice of education:--
"Damnosa quid non imminuit dies?
Ætas parentum, pejor avis, tulit
Nos nequiores, mox daturos
Progeniem vitiosiorem."[245]
[245] Hor., Carm. III. vi. 45-48.
Barren as is classical literature in any just recognition of the
continuity of events, any true appreciation of the movement of history,
or any well-defined confidence in the Future, it were wrong to say
that it never found a voice which seemed, in harmony with the Prophets
and the Evangelists, to proclaim the advent of a better age. Virgil,
in his Eclogue to Pollio,--the exact meaning of which is still a
riddle,--breaks forth in words of vague aspiration, which have been
sometimes supposed to herald the coming of the Saviour. The blessings
of Peace are here foreshadowed, while the Golden Age seems to be not
only behind, but also before. Thus, notwithstanding the prejudice of
superstition and the constraint of ignorance, has the human heart, in
longings for a better condition on earth, gone forward as the pioneer
of Humanity.
To the superstition of Heathenism succeeded that of the Christian
Church. The popular doctrine of an immediate millennium, inculcated by
a succession of early fathers, took the place of ancient fable; and a
Golden Age was placed in advance to animate the hope and perseverance
of the faithful. It was believed that the anxieties and strifes
filling the lives of men were all to be lost in a blissful Sabbath of
a thousand years, when Christ with the triumphant band of saints would
return to reign upon earth until the last and general resurrection.
Vain and irrational as was the early form of this anticipation, it was
not without advantage. It filled the souls of all who received it with
aspirations for the Future, while it rudely prefigured that promised
period--then, alas! how distant!--when the whole world will glow in the
illumination of Christian truth. Among the means by which the Law of
Human Progress has found acceptance, it is only just to mention this
prophetic vision of the ancient Church.
All the legitimate influences of Christianity were in the same
direction. Christianity is the religion of Progress. Here is a
distinctive feature, which we vainly seek in any Heathen faith
professed upon earth. Confucius, in his sublime morals, taught us not
to do unto others what we would have them not do unto us; but the
Chinese philosopher did not declare the ultimate triumph of this law.
It was reserved for the Sermon on the Mount to reveal the vital truth,
that all the highest commands of religion and duty, drawing in their
train celestial peace, and marking the final goal of all Progress among
men, shall one day be obeyed. "For verily I say unto you," says the
Saviour, "till heaven and earth pass, _one jot or one tittle shall in
no wise pass from the Law, till all be fulfilled_."
There is nothing of good so vast or beautiful, nothing so distant or
seemingly inaccessible, as to fall beyond the reach of these promises.
Though imperfectly understood, or recognized, in the night of ignorance
and prejudice, they were heralds of the dawn. In the advance of Modern
Europe, they led the way, whispering, _Onward forever!_ Long before
Philosophy deduced the Law of Human Progress from the history of man,
the Gospel silently planted it in the human heart. There it rested,
influencing powerfully, though gently, the march of events.
Slowly did it pass from the formularies of devotion into the
convictions of reason and the treasury of science. Strange blindness!
They, who, repeating the Lord's Prayer, daily called for _the coming
of his kingdom on earth_, who professed implicit faith in the final
fulfilment of the Law, still continued in Heathen ignorance of the
significance and spirit of the Prayer they daily uttered and of the
Law they daily recognized. They did not perceive that the kingdom of
the Lord was to come, and the Law to be fulfilled by a continuity of
daily labor. As modern civilization gradually unfolded itself amidst
the multiplying generations of men, they witnessed the successive
manifestations of power,--but perceived no Law. They looked upon the
imposing procession of events, but did not discern the rule which
guided the mighty series. Ascending from triumph to triumph, they saw
dominion extended by the discoveries of intrepid navigators,--saw
learning strengthened by the studies of accomplished scholars,--saw
universities opening their portals to ingenuous youth in all corners
of the land, from Aberdeen and Copenhagen to Toledo and Ferrara,--saw
Art put forth new graces in the painting of Raffaelle, new grandeur
in the painting, the sculpture, and the architecture of Michel
Angelo,--caught the strains of poets, no longer cramped by ancient
idioms, but flowing sweetly in the language learned at a mother's
knee,--received the manifold revelations of science in geometry,
mathematics, astronomy,--beheld the barbarism of the barbarous Art of
War changed and refined, though barbarous still, by the invention of
gunpowder,--witnessed knowledge of all kinds springing to unwonted
power through the marvellous agency of the printing-press,--admired
the character of _the Good Man of Peace_, as described in that work
of unexampled circulation, translated into all modern languages, the
"Imitation of Christ," by Thomas à Kempis,--listened to the apostolic
preaching of Wyckliffe in England, Huss in Bohemia, Savonarola in
Florence, Luther at Worms; and yet all these things, the harmonious
expression of _progressive_ energies belonging to Man, token of an
untiring advance, earnest of a mightier Future, seemed to teach no
certain lesson.
The key to this advance had not been found. It was not seen that the
constant desire for improvement implanted in man, with the constant
effort consequent thereon in a life susceptible of indefinite Progress,
caused, naturally, under the laws of a beneficent God, an indefinite
advance,--that the evil passions of individuals, or of masses, while
retarding, could not permanently restrain this divine impulse,--and
that each generation, by irresistible necessity, added to the
accumulations of the Past, and in this way prepared a higher Future. To
all ignorant of this tendency, history, instead of a connected chain,
with cause and effect in natural order, is nothing but a disconnected,
irregular series of incidents, like separate and confused circles
having no common bond. It is a dark chaos, embroiled by "chance, high
arbitress," or swayed by some accidental man, fortunate in position or
power. Even Macchiavelli, the consummate historian and politician of
his age,--Bodin, the able speculator upon Government,--Bossuet, the
eloquent teacher of religion and history,--Grotius, the illustrious
founder of the Laws of Nations,--whose large intelligence should have
grasped the true philosophy of events,--all failed to recognize in
them any prevailing law or governing principle.
It was reserved for a professor at Naples, Giambattista Vico, in
the early part of the last century, to review the history of the
Past, analyze its movements, and finally disclose the existence of a
primitive rule or law by which these movements were effected. His work,
entitled "The Principles of a New Science concerning the Common Nature
of Nations,"[246] first published in 1725, constitutes an epoch in
historical studies. Recent Italian admirers vindicate for its author
a place among great discoverers, by the side of Descartes, Galileo,
Bacon, and Newton.[247] Without undertaking to question, or to adopt,
this lofty homage to a name little known, it will not be doubted, that,
as author of an elaborate work devoted expressly to the philosophy
of history, at a period when history was supposed to be without
philosophy, he deserves honorable mention.
[246] Principj di una Scienza nuova d'intorno alla comune Natura
delle Nazioni. The fourth book is entitled _Del corso che fanno
le nazioni_; the fifth book, _Del ricorso delle cose humane nel
risurgere che fanno le nazioni_.
[247] Cataldo Jannelli, Cenni sulla Natura et Necessità della
Scienza delle Cose et delle Storie Umane. Cap. 3, sec. 6.
Vico taught regard not merely for the individual and the nation, but
the race, and showed, that, whatever the fortunes of individuals,
Humanity advances,--that no blind or capricious chance controls the
course of human affairs, but that whatever is done proceeds directly,
under God, from the forces and faculties of men, and thus can have no
true cause except in the nature of things,--excluding, of course, the
idea of chance. He recognized three principles at the foundation of
civilization: first, the existence of Divine Providence; secondly, the
necessity of moderating the passions; and, thirdly, the immortality of
the soul: three primal truths, answering to three historical facts of
universal acceptance,--religion, marriage, and sepulture. Three stages
marked the history of mankind: first, the divine, or theocratic; next,
the heroic; and, lastly, the human. These appeared in Antiquity, and
were reproduced, as he fancied, in modern times. Ingenuity and novelty
are stamped upon this exposition, which is elevated by the exclusion of
chance and the recognition of God.
While recognizing Humanity as governed by law, and with a common
dependence, the Neapolitan professor failed to perceive that this same
law and this common dependence promise to conduct it through unknown
and infinite stages. Believing monarchy a perfect government, he did
not see beyond the time of kings. Like others before him, and even
in our own day, he was perplexed by the treacherous image of youth,
manhood, and age, which he applied to nations, as to the individual
man. No discovery is complete, and that of Vico, while most ingenious
and fruitful, failed to grasp the whole law of the Future.
Meanwhile a gigantic genius in Germany,--whose vision, no less
comprehensive than penetrating, embraced the whole circumference
of knowledge and reached into the undiscovered Future, to whom the
complexities of mathematics, the subtilties of philology, the mazes of
philosophy, the courses of history, the rules of jurisprudence, and the
heights of theology were all equally familiar,--Leibnitz, that more
than imperial conqueror in the realms of universal knowledge,--the
greatest, perhaps, of Human Intelligences,--enunciated the Law of
Progress in all the sciences and all the concerns of life. The Present,
born of the Past, he said, is pregnant with the Future. It is by a
sure series that we advance, using and enjoying all our gifts for
health of body and improvement of mind. Everything, from the simplest
substance up to man, progresses towards God, the Infinite Being, Source
of all other beings; and in bold words, which may require explanation,
he says, "Man seems able to arrive at perfection": _Videtur homo ad
perfectionem venire posse_.[248]
[248] Leibnitz, Opera Omnia (ed. Dutens), Tom. VI. p. 309:
_Leibnitiana_, Art. LXXIV.--"Ut semper _certa serie progredi_
valeamus." Opera Philosophica, p. 85, Art. XI., _De Scientia
Universali_.--See also _Théodicée_, § 341.
Leibnitz saw the Law of Progress by intuition, and became its herald.
But there is no reason to believe that he appreciated its transcendent
importance as a rule of conduct, and submitted his great powers to its
influence. He saw more than Vico, but he did not discern the practical
guide he had discovered. And yet, recognizing this law, the gates of
the Future were open to him, and he saw Man in distant perspective,
arrived at heights of happiness which he cannot now conceive. The
vision of Universal Peace was to him no longer a vision, but the
practical idea of humane statesmen, while he bent his incomparable
genius to the discovery of a new agent of intercourse among men,--the
aspiration of other philosophers since his day,--a Universal Language,
where the confusion of tongues will be forgotten, and the union of
hearts be consummated in the union of speech.
Close upon Leibnitz came Lessing, whose genius, less universal, but
more exquisite, made him the regenerator of German literature. His
soul was touched by sympathy for all mankind, and he saw its sure
advance. Almost by his side was Herder, gifted among a gifted people,
who in his "Philosophy of History" portrays Humanity in its incessant
progress from small beginnings of ignorance and barbarism, when wrong
and war and slavery prevail, to the recognition of reason and justice
as the rule of life. "There is nothing enthusiastical," he says in that
work, which is a classic of German prose, "in the hope, that, wherever
men dwell, at some future period will dwell men rational, just, and
happy,--happy, not through the means of their own reason alone, but of
the common reason of their whole fraternal race."[249] In these last
words the Law of Progress is announced, with all its promises.
[249] Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, tr. Churchill,
Book XV. ch. 5, § 12.
In France we trace this law through a succession of master
minds,--first of whom in time, as in authority, is Descartes, the chief
of French philosophy. His life was crowded with triumphs of intellect,
and after death his spirit seemed for a time to rule all departments
of study. Like the universal soul of the Stoics, it was everywhere.
Though not formally enunciating the Law of Progress, his "Discourse on
Method," first published in 1637, acknowledged its influence in natural
science. "The experience which I have in physics," he says, "teaches
me that it is possible to arrive at a knowledge of many things which
will be very useful to life, and that we may yet discover methods by
which man, comprehending the force and the action of fire, water, air,
stars, skies, and all the other bodies which environ us, as distinctly
as we comprehend the different trades of our artisans, shall be able
to employ them in the same fashion for all the uses to which they
are appropriate, and thus shall render himself master and possessor
of Nature." In these new triumphs of knowledge, he says, "men may
learn to enjoy the fruits of the earth without trouble; their health
will be preserved, and they will be able to exempt themselves from an
infinitude of ills, as well of body as of mind, and even, perhaps, from
the weakness of old age." As I repeat these words, uttered long before
the steam-engine, the railroad, the electric telegraph, and the use of
ether, I seem to hear a prophecy, the prophecy of Science, which each
day helps to fulfil. "Without intending any slight," he continues, "I
am sure that even those engaged in these matters will confess that all
that they know is almost nothing in comparison with what remains to be
known."[250] There is grandeur in the assurance with which the great
philosopher announces the Future.
[250] Descartes, Discours de la Méthode, Part. 6: OEuvres, Tom.
I. pp. 192, 193.
From Descartes I come to Pascal, never to be mentioned without a
tribute to the early genius which, though removed from life at the age
of thirty-nine, left an ineffaceable trace upon the religion, science,
and literature of his time. The Law of Progress received from him its
earliest and most distinct statement as a rule of philosophy applicable
to all the sciences depending upon experience and reason. This is to
be found in that posthumous work of eloquent piety and sentiment,
_Les Pensées_, first published by his companions of Port Royal, in
1669, some time after his death; and it is not a little curious, as
an illustration of the prejudices this truth has encountered, that
the chapter where it is set forth, entitled _Of Authority in Matters
of Philosophy_, was in this early edition suppressed. Not until the
next century was the testimony of Pascal disclosed to the world. "By
a special prerogative of the human race," says he, "not only each
man advances day by day in the sciences, but all men together make
continual progress therein, as the universe grows old; because the
same thing happens in the succession of men which takes place in the
different ages of an individual. So that the whole succession of men in
the course of so many ages may be regarded as _one man who lives always
and who learns continually_. From this we see with what injustice we
respect Antiquity in its philosophers; for, since old age is the period
most distant from infancy, who does not see that the old age of this
_universal man_ must not be sought in the times nearest his birth, but
in those which are the most remote? They whom we call the Ancients
were indeed new in all things, and properly formed the infancy of
mankind; and since to their knowledge we have joined the experience of
the ages which have followed, it is in ourselves that is to be found
that Antiquity which we revere in the others."[251] We cannot admire
too much this splendid inspiration, where the expression is in harmony
with the thought. When it was said that mankind may be regarded "as one
man who lives always and who learns continually," there was indeed a
new discovery, as great as if a new continent or a new planet had been
disclosed.
[251] Pascal, Pensées, Part. I. Art. 1, _De l'Autorité en Matière
de Philosophie_: OEuvres (ed. Bossut, 1779), Tom. II.
The age enlightened by the genius of Pascal was ready to discuss
the question then at hand, on the comparative merits of Ancients
and Moderns, involving an inquiry into the principles of Progress,
particularly in art and literature. The close of the seventeenth
century witnessed this memorable debate, which extended from France to
England. French critics, under the lead of Boileau, espoused the cause
of the Ancients. Against them was Charles Perrault, conspicuous at the
time among academicians, and still remembered as author of those Fairy
Tales, including "Cinderella" and "Bluebeard," which have given him a
fame not inferior to that of his brother, Claude Perrault, with whom he
is sometimes confounded, to whom France is indebted for that perpetual
triumph in architecture, the unsurpassed front of the Louvre. In an
elaborate work, published in 1688-92, entitled "Parallel between the
Ancients and Moderns in regard to the Arts and Sciences,"[252] where
the debate is in the form of dialogue, he vindicates the Moderns in
comparison with the Ancients, and insists, that, notwithstanding the
perfection at which the latter arrived, the Moderns have an advantage
from prolonged experience and its necessary accumulations. Like Pascal,
whose remarkable words were still unpublished, he, too, sees the life
of Humanity _as the life of an individual man eternal_, and, though
recognizing epochs of retrogression in history, asserts the continuous
progress of the race, not only in the sciences, but also in morals and
the arts, not forgetting the art of the kitchen.
[252] Parallèle des Anciens et des Modernes, en ce qui regarde les
Arts et les Sciences.
This sentiment found similar utterance in a lively contemporary,
Fontenelle, an honored academician, whose life extended to a length
of days unequalled in the history of literature, having accomplished
one hundred years, after devoting that century of existence to the
exclusive pursuit of letters. "A good mind cultivated," says this
exceptional veteran, "is, so to speak, composed of all the minds of
the preceding ages: it is but one and the same mind that has been
cultivated during all this period. So that this man, who has lived from
the beginning of the world to the present time, has had his infancy,
when he was occupied only with the more pressing wants of life,--his
youth, when he has succeeded pretty well in matters of imagination,
such as poesy and eloquence, and when he has even begun to reason, but
with less solidity than fire. He has now reached the age of manhood,
when he reasons with more force and more intelligence than ever; but
he would be yet further advanced, if the passion for war had not for
a long time possessed him, and given him a contempt for the sciences,
to which he has at last returned.... _This man will have no old age_;
he will be ever equally capable of the things to which his youth was
fitted, and ever more and more so of those which belong to the age
of manhood: that is to say,--to quit the allegory,--men will never
degenerate, but the sound views of the entire succession of good minds
will always be added to one another."[253]--Titian, like Fontenelle,
was remarkable for unusual length of days; but the consummate artist,
among his immortal pictures, has left hardly one more worthy of
immortality than this brilliant statement, where the discovery of
Pascal is affirmed and presented with singular clearness and precision.
[253] Fontenelle, Digression sur les Anciens et les Modernes:
OEuvres, Tom. II. p. 249.
Thus, in France, was the Law of Progress confessed in the sciences by
Descartes and Pascal,--in literature, in arts, and even in morals,
by Perrault and Fontenelle. This was before the expiration of the
seventeenth century. It remained that it should be announced, not only
as a special law applicable to certain departments, but as a general
Law of Humanity, universal in application, guiding men in all their
labors, and erecting before them a goal of aspiration and of certain
triumph. This was done by another, who was not philosopher only, nor
statesman only, nor philanthropist only, but in whom this triumvirate
of characters blended with rare success,--Turgot, the well-loved
minister of Louis the Sixteenth. It was said of him by Voltaire, that
"he was born wise and just"; and this tribute has especial point, when
it is considered that his acceptance of this law was first announced
in an essay[254] written in 1750, at the age of twenty-three, while he
was yet at the Sorbonne. Let it be mentioned in his praise, that, as
he grew in years, in power, and in fame, he did not depart from the
happy intuitions of early life, or forget the visions which, as a young
man, he had seen. Perceiving clearly the advance already made, he drew
from it the assurance of yet further advance. In reason, knowledge, and
virtue he did not hesitate to place his own age before preceding ages.
"The corrupt of to-day," he was accustomed to say, "would have been
Capuchins a hundred years ago." He declared the capacity for indefinite
improvement a distinctive quality of the human race, belonging to the
race in general, and to each individual in particular. He did not doubt
that the progress of the physical sciences, of education, of method in
the sciences, or the discovery of new methods, would enlarge the powers
of man, rendering him capable of preserving a larger number of ideas in
the memory, and of multiplying their relations. Nor did he doubt that
the moral sense was equally capable of improvement,--that man would
become constantly better in proportion as he was enlightened,--that
the advance of society would necessarily keep pace with the advance of
morals,--that politics, founded, like other sciences, upon observation
and reason, would advance also,--that all useful truths must be finally
known and adopted, while ancient errors are by degrees annihilated, or
give place to new truths,--and that this Progress, increasing always
from age to age, has no term, or none at least which can be assigned in
the present state of human intelligence.
[254] Sur les Progrès successifs de l'Esprit Humain: OEuvres (ed.
Daire), Tom. II. pp. 697-611.
The early testimony of Turgot was repeated at a later day in his
precious fragment on Universal History, which, when compared with
the Introductory Discourse of Bossuet on the same theme, shows how
superior in the philosophy of history was the layman to the bishop.
All ages, says Turgot, are enchained by a succession of causes and
effects uniting the present with what has preceded, and all accumulated
knowledge is a common treasure, transmitted from generation to
generation, as an inheritance, augmented by the discoveries of each
age. In this spirit he inaugurates Universal History, giving to it a
just elevation, as the exhibition of Human Progress in all its epochs,
with all its hindrances, and crowned by all its triumphs.[255]
[255] Plan de Deux Discours sur l'Histoire Universelle: OEuvres,
Tom II. pp. 626-667.
Such testimony, commended by the earnestness of conviction, was not
without influence on the great movement which culminated in the earlier
revolution of France, or rather it was part of that movement. It
found welcome in many bosoms, and helped stir the vast mass. Among
those especially penetrated by it was the friend and biographer of
Turgot, who was not behind his master in this loyalty: I refer to
Condorcet. This unfortunate nobleman, conspicuous for learning and
genius, particularly in mathematics, and for honest devotion to the
principles of the Revolution, when at last proscribed, and compelled
to flee for life,--pursued by the very dogs he had helped to arouse,
but was impotent to restrain,--sought shelter with a friend, where,
in concealment, he passed the last eight months before his mournful
death. His first thought was, to send forth a vindication of himself,
addressed to his fellow-citizens; but soon renouncing this design, he
devoted what remained to him of life--during that most hateful passage
of human history, the Reign of Terror--to the preparation of a work
in which he brought his various powers to the development of the Law
of Human Progress. It is entitled "Sketch of an Historical Table of
the Progress of the Human Mind,"[256] and reviews human society in its
different stages, unfolding the order of its changes and the influences
transmitted from age to age, pointing out the different steps in the
march towards truth and happiness. From observation of man as he has
been, and as he is to-day, the author passes naturally to those new
triumphs which are his certain destiny, so long as he continues to
possess the faculties with which he is endowed, and to be governed by
the same universal laws.
[256] Esquisse d'un Tableau Historique des Progrès de l'Esprit
Humain.
Thus wrote Condorcet, while the hand of Death yet waited. He died;
but the return to reason in France was signalized by unaccustomed
homage to the victim. The Committee of Public Instruction reported,
that the sketch was "a classical work offered to republican schools by
an unfortunate philosopher, that everywhere in it the improvement of
society was recognized as the object most deserving the activity of
the human intelligence, and that pupils studying here the history of
the sciences and the arts would learn to cherish liberty and to detest
and vanquish all tyrannies"; and thereupon the National Convention
ordered three thousand copies to be distributed at the expense of the
nation.[257] And here properly closes this branch of our subject.
[257] Rapport fait à la Convention Nationale, au Nom du Comité
d'Instruction Publique, etc.: OEuvres de Condorcet (ed. O'Connor
et Arago, Paris, 1847-49), Tom. VI. pp. 3-5.
The high lineage and authority of this law I have traced, not by the
enthusiasts of Humanity, not by Fénelon or Saint-Pierre, not by Diderot
or Rousseau, but by a succession of masters who are our acknowledged
guides in science, philosophy, and history. In Italy the torch was held
aloft by Vico; in Germany, by Leibnitz, Lessing, and Herder; in France
it passed through the hands of Descartes, Pascal, Perrault, Fontenelle,
Turgot, and Condorcet:--
"Et quasi cursores, vitaï lampada tradunt,"[258]
till at last, at the close of the eighteenth century, its flame was
seen from afar. To England we seem little indebted; and yet, when I
think of Lord Bacon, I am disposed to say that we are much indebted.
This law inspired his great work on the "Advancement of Learning,"
and is expressed in its very title. It entered into his aspiration to
deliver man from present weakness by extending his power over Nature.
It is foreshadowed in his great declaration, antedating Pascal, that
Antiquity was the youth of the world,--"_Antiquitas sæculi, juventus
mundi_."[259] For a time Bacon had no successors in England. At a later
day this law was cordially embraced by Dr. Price,[260] the friend and
correspondent of Turgot. Dr. Johnson, who surely did not accept it,
shows an unconscious sympathy with it, when he says of life in pastoral
countries, that it "knows nothing of progression or advancement."[261]
Unhappy people, thus without visible Future on earth!
[258] Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, Lib. II. 78.
[259] De Augmentis Scientiarum, Lib. I.: Works, Vol. IV. p. 34.
[260] There is a sermon by Dr. Price, published in 1787, on _The
Evidence of a Future Period of Improvement in the State of Mankind_.
[261] Journey to the Hebrides: Works (Oxford, 1825), Vol. IX. p. 98.
To the eighteenth century belongs the honor--signal honor I venture to
call it--of first distinctly acknowledging and enunciating that Law of
Human Progress, which, though preached in Judea eighteen hundred years
ago, failed to be received by men,--nay, still fails to be received by
men. Writers in our own age, of much ability and unexampled hardihood,
while adopting this fundamental law, proceed to arraign existing
institutions of society. My present purpose does not require me to
consider these, whether for censure or praise,--abounding as they do in
evil, abounding as they do in good. It is my single aim to trace the
gradual development and final establishment of that great law which
teaches that "there is a good time coming,"--a Future even on earth, to
arouse the hopes, the aspirations, and the energies of Man.