The Idea of Progress: An Inquiry Into Its Origin and GrowthMacmillan, 1920 - 377 pages |
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Abbé Abbé de Saint-Pierre advance ancient antiquity appeared argument Aristotle arts authority Bacon believe Bodin Bossuet Cartesian causes Christianity civilisation Comte conception Condorcet criticism degeneration Descartes discoveries doctrine of Progress earth eighteenth century enlightenment epoch equality Essay fact felicity Fontenelle France French future Godwin Greek happiness Hegel Helvétius human nature human race idea of Progress ideal imagination improvement increase indefinite individual influence intellectual interest inventions J. B. BURY Kant laws liberty literature living Louis XIV Madame de Staël Malebranche man's mankind ment metaphysical Middle Ages mind Montesquieu moral movement observed optimism optimistic organisation past perfection period Perrault phenomena philosophy of history physical Plato political principle reached realised reason recognised reform religion Revolution Roger Bacon Roman Rousseau Saint-Simon says scientific social society speculations spirit stage tendencies theory of Progress thinkers thought tion Turgot universal Voltaire whole writings
Popular passages
Page 336 - As all the living forms of life are the lineal descendants of those which lived long before the Silurian epoch, we may feel certain that the ordinary succession by generation has never once been broken, and that no cataclysm has desolated the whole world. Hence we may look with some confidence to a secure future of equally inappreciable length. And as natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection.
Page 180 - ... a just mean between the indolence of the primitive state and the petulant activity of our egoism, must have been the happiest and most stable of epochs.
Page 338 - The ultimate development of the ideal man is certain — as certain as any conclusion in which we place the most implicit faith ; for instance, that all men will die.
Page 235 - Any general character, from the best to the worst, from the most ignorant to the most enlightened, may be given to any community, even to the world at large, by the application of proper means; which means are to a great extent at the command and under the control of those who have influence in the affairs of men.
Page 231 - ... no one was more talked of, more looked up to, more sought after, and wherever liberty, truth, justice was the theme, his name was not far off: — now he has sunk below the horizon, and enjoys the serene twilight of a doubtful immortality.
Page 97 - Then we upon our globe's last verge shall go And view the ocean leaning on the sky : From thence our rolling neighbours we shall know And on the lunar world securely pry.
Page 342 - Nay more, thoughtful men, once escaped from the blinding influences of traditional prejudice, will find in the lowly stock whence man has sprung, the best evidence of the splendour of his capacities; and will discern in his long progress through the past, a reasonable ground of faith in his attainment of a nobler Future.
Page 221 - Bacon observes, being power, the human powers will, in fact, be enlarged; nature, including both its materials and its laws, will be more at our command; men will make their situation in this world abundantly more easy and comfortable; they will probably prolong their existence in it, and will grow daily more happy, each in himself, and more able (and, I believe, more disposed) to communicate happiness to others.
Page 228 - The obvious answer to this objection, is, that to reason thus is to foresee difficulties at a great distance. Three fourths of the habitable globe is now uncultivated. The parts already cultivated are capable of immeasurable improvement. Myriads of centuries of still increasing population may pass away, and the earth be still found sufficient for the subsistence of its inhabitants.
Page 96 - Dreams of perfect forms of government made way for dreams of wings with which men were to fly from the Tower to the Abbey, and of doublekeeled ships which were never to founder in the fiercest storm. All classes were hurried along by the prevailing sentiment. Cavalier and Roundhead, Churchman and Puritan were for once allied. Divines, jurists, statesmen, nobles, princes, swelled the triumph of the Baconian philosophy.