entury, began
to concentrate their brains on the problems of social science and to
turn the light of reason on the nature of man and the roots of society.
They wrought with unscrupulous resolution and with far-reaching effects.

With the extension of rationalism into the social domain, it came about
naturally that the idea of intellectual progress was enlarged into the
idea of the general Progress of man. The transition was easy. If
it could be proved that social evils were due neither to innate and
incorrigible disabilities of the human being nor to the nature of
things, but simply to ignorance and prejudices, then the improvement of
his state, and ultimately the attainment of felicity, would be only
a matter of illuminating ignorance and removing errors, of increasing
knowledge and diffusing light. The growth of the "universal human
reason"--a Cartesian phrase, which had figured in the philosophy of
Malebranche--must assure a happy destiny to humanity.

Between 1690 and 1740 the conception of an indefinite progress of
enlightenment had been making its way in French intellectual circles,
and must often have been a topic of discussion in the salons, for
instance, of Madame de Lambert, Madame de Tencin, and Madame Dupin,
where Fontenelle was one of the most conspicuous guests. To the same
circle belonged his friend the Abbe de Saint-Pierre, and it is in his
writings that we first find the theory widened in its compass to embrace
progress towards social perfection. [Footnote: For his life and works
the best book is J. Drouet's monograph, L'Abbe de Saint-Pierre: l'homme
et l'oeuvre (1912), but on some points Goumy's older study (1859) is
still worth consulting. I have used the edition of his works in 12
volumes published during his lifetime at Rotterdam, 1733-37.]

1.

He was brought up on Cartesian principles, and he idealised Descartes
somewhat as Lucretius idealised Epicurus. But he had no aptitude for
philosophy, and he prized physical science only as far as it directly
administered to the happiness of men. He was a natural utilitarian, and
perhaps no one was ever more consistent in making utility the criterion
of all actions and theories. Applying this standard he obliterated from
the roll of great men most of those whom common opinion places among
the greatest. Alexander, Julius Caesar, Charlemagne receive short shrift
from the Abbe de Saint-Pierre. [Footnote: Compare Voltaire, Lettres sur
les Anglais, xii., wher