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Esquisse d’un tableau historique des progres de l’espirit humain.

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First edition of Condorcet’s epoch-making definition of progress, the summation of the Enlightenment belief in man’s perfectibility, the outline which provided humanity with a view of its own history as a narrative of progress and emancipation.

Condorcet’s three main propositions consist in his regard of the past as the unfolding of the progressive development of human capabilities; in his persuasion that progress in the natural sciences must be followed by progress in the moral and political sciences; that social evils are the avoidable products of ignorance, rather than inevitable consequences of features in human nature. Condorcet ‘forecasts the destruction of inequality between nations and classes, and the improvement, intellectual, moral and physical, of human nature. Unlike Godwin, he does not preach absolute equality, but equality of opportunity’ (PMM).

En Français dans le texte, 196; Martin & Walter, 1, 8083; Printing and the Mind of Man 246; Quérard, II, p. 269.

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