#8 Condorcet on the future progress of the human mind
If man can, with almost complete assurance, predict phenomena when he knows their laws, and if, even when he does not, he can with high probability forecast the events of the future on the basis of his experience of the past, why, then, should it be regarded as a fantastic undertaking to sketch, with some pretense to truth, the future destiny of man on the basis of his history? The sole foundation for belief in the natural sciences is this idea, that the general laws directing the phenomena of the universe, known or unknown, are necessary and constant. Why should this principle be any less true for the development of the intellectual and moral faculties of man than for the other operations of nature? Since beliefs founded on past experience of like conditions provide the only rule of conduct for the wisest of men, why should the philosopher be forbidden to base his conjectures on these same foundations, as long as he does not attribute to them a certainty superior to that warranted by the number, the constancy and the accuracy of his observations? Our hopes for the future condition of the human race can be subsumed under three important heads: the abolition of inequality between nations; the progress of equality within a single people; and the true perfection of man. Will all nations one day attain that state of civilization which the most enlightened, the freest and the least burdened by prejudices, such as the French and the Anglo-Americans, have attained already? Will the vast gulf that separates these peoples from the slavery of nations under the rule of monarchs, from the barbarism of African tribes, from the ignorance of savages, little by little disappear?
1743 Born Jean-Antoine-Nicolas Caritat, marquis de Condorcet. 1794 Leaves his refuge on 25 March and is arrested two days later at Clamart. On 28 March Condorcet is found dead in the prison of Bourg-de-l’Égalité.
Condorcet, ‘The Sketch’, in Condorcet Political Writings, edited by Steven Lukes and Nadia Urbinati, Cambridge 2012