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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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]
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.
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.
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]