The Idea of Progress: An Inquiry into Its Origin and Growth

by J. B. Bury

The civilised countries of Europe spent about three hundred years in passing from the mental atmosphere of the Middle Ages into the mental atmosphere of the modern world. These centuries were one of the conspicuously progressive periods in history, but the conditions were not favourable to the appearance of an idea of Progress, though the intellectual milieu was being prepared in which that idea could be born. This progressive period, which is conveniently called the Renaissance, lasted from the fourteenth into the seventeenth century. The great results, significant for our present purpose, which the human mind achieved at this stage of its development were two. Self-confidence was restored to human reason, and life on this planet was recognised as possessing a value independent of any hopes or fears connected with a life beyond the grave.

But in discarding medieval naivete and superstition, in assuming a freer attitude towards theological authority, and in developing a new conception of the value of individual personality, men looked to the guidance of Greek and Roman thinkers, and called up the spirit of the ancient world to exorcise the ghosts of the dark ages. Their minds were thus directed backwards to a past civilisation which, in the ardour of new discovery, and in the reaction against medievalism, they enthroned as ideal; and a new authority was set up, the authority of ancient writers. In general speculation the men of the Renaissance followed the tendencies and adopted many of the prejudices of Greek philosophy. Although some great discoveries, with far-reaching, revolutionary consequences, were made in this period, most active minds were engaged in rediscovering, elaborating, criticising, and imitating what was old. It was not till the closing years of the Renaissance that speculation began to seek and feel its way towards new points of departure. It was not till then that a serious reaction set in against the deeper influences of medieval thought.

2.

To illustrate the limitations of this period let us take Machiavelli, one of the most original thinkers that Italy ever produced.

There are certain fundamental principles underlying Machiavelli's science of politics, which he has indicated incidentally in his unsystematic way, but which are essential to the comprehension of his doctrines. The first is that at all times the world of human beings has been the same, varying indeed from land to land, but always presenting the same aspect of some societies advancing towards prosperity, and others declining. Those which are on the upward grade will always reach a point beyond which they cannot rise further, but they will not remain permanently on this level, they will begin to decline; for human things are always in motion and therefore must go up or down. Similarly, declining states will ultimately touch bottom and then begin to ascend. Thus a good constitution or social organisation can last only for a short time. [Footnote: Machiavelli's principle of advance and decline: Discorsi, ii. Introduction; Istorie fiorentine, v. ad init. For the cycle of constitutions through which all states tend to move see Discorsi, ii. 2 (here we see the influence of Polybius).]

It is obvious that in this view of history Machiavelli was inspired and instructed by the ancients. And it followed from his premisses that the study of the past is of the highest value because it enables men to see what is to come; since to all social events at any period there are correspondences in ancient times. "For these events are due to men, who have and always had the same passions, and therefore of necessity the effects must be the same." [Footnote: Discorsi, iii. 43.]

Again, Machiavelli follows his ancient masters in assuming as evident that a good organisation of society can be effected only by the deliberate design of a wise legislator. [Footnote: Ib. iii. 1. The lawgiver must assume for his purposes that all men are bad: ib. i. 3. Villari has useful remarks on these principles in his Machiavelli, Book ii. cap. iii.] Forms of government and religions are the personal creations of a single brain; and the only chance for a satisfactory constitution or for a religion to maintain itself for any length of time is constantly to repress any tendencies to depart from the original conceptions of its creator.

It is evident that these two assumptions are logically connected. The lawgiver builds on the immutability of human nature; what is good for one generation must be good for another. For Machiavelli, as for Plato, change meant corruption. Thus his fundamental theory excluded any conception of a satisfactory social order gradually emerging by the impersonal work of successive generations, adapting their institutions to their own changing needs and aspirations. It is characteristic, and another point of resemblance with ancient thinkers that he sought the ideal state in the past—republican Rome.

These doctrines, the sameness of human nature and the omnipotent lawgiver, left no room for anything resembling a theory of Progress. If not held afterwards in the uncompromising form in which Machiavelli presented them, yet it has well been pointed out that they lay at the root of some of the most famous speculations of the eighteenth century. [Footnote: Villari, loc. cit.]

Machiavelli's sameness of human nature meant that man would always have the same passions and desires, weaknesses and vices. This assumption was compatible with the widely prevailing view that man had degenerated in the course of the last fifteen hundred years. From the exaltation of Greek and Roman antiquity to a position of unattainable superiority, especially in the field of knowledge, the degeneration of humanity was an easy and natural inference. If the Greeks in philosophy and science were authoritative guides, if in art and literature they were unapproachable, if the Roman republic, as Machiavelli thought, was an ideal state, it would seem that the powers of Nature had declined, and she could no longer produce the same quality of brain. So long as this paralysing theory prevailed, it is manifest that the idea of Progress could not appear.