nnot be, other
than the first ideas of sense developed or combined, just as the edifice
whose height most amazes the eye, of necessity reposes on the very earth
that we tread; and the same senses, the same organs, the spectacle of
the same universe, have everywhere given men the same ideas, as the same
needs and the same dispositions have everywhere taught them the same
arts.' Or it might be put in other words. There is identity in human
nature, and repetition in surrounding circumstance means the
reproduction of social consequences. For another thing, 'the actual
state of the universe, by presenting at the same moment on the earth all
the shades of barbarism and civilisation, discloses to us as in a single
glance the monuments, the footprints of all the steps of the human mind,
the measure of the whole track along which it has passed, the history of
all the ages.'

The progress of the human mind means to Turgot the progress of
knowledge. Its history is the history of the growth and spread of
science and the arts. Its advance is increased enlightenment of the
understanding. From Adam and Eve down to Lewis the Fourteenth, the
record of progress is the chronicle of the ever-increasing additions to
the sum of what men know, and the accuracy and fulness with which they
know. The chief instrument in this enlightenment is the rising up from
time to time of some lofty and superior intelligence; for though human
character contains everywhere the same principle, yet certain minds are
endowed with a peculiar abundance of talent that is refused to others.
'Circumstances develop these superior talents, or leave them buried in
obscurity; and from the infinite variety of these circumstances springs
the inequality among nations.' The agricultural stage goes immediately
before a decisively polished state, because it is then first that there
is that surplus of means of subsistence, which allows men of higher
capacity the leisure for using it in the acquisition of knowledge,
properly so called.

One of the greatest steps was the precious invention of writing, and one
of the most rapid was the constitution of mathematical knowledge. The
sciences that came next matured more slowly, because in mathematics the
explorer has only to compare ideas among one another, while in the
others he has to test the conformity of ideas to objective facts.
Mathematical truths, becoming more numerous every day, and increasingly
fruitful in proportion, lead