his passions, and his reason, in the first place; and in the second, his
environment,--geography and climate. But its course is a strict sequence
of particular causes and effects, "which bind the state of the world (at
a given moment) to all those which have preceded it." Turgot does not
discuss the question of free-will, but his causal continuity does not
exclude "the free action of great men." He conceives universal history
as the progress of the human race advancing as an immense whole
steadily, though slowly, through alternating periods of calm and
disturbance towards greater perfection. The various units of the entire
mass do not move with equal steps, because nature is not impartial with
her gifts. Some men have talents denied to others, and the gifts of
nature are sometimes developed by circumstances, sometimes left buried
in obscurity. The inequalities in the march of nations are due to the
infinite variety of circumstances; and these inequalities may be taken
to prove that the world had a beginning, for in an eternal duration they
would have disappeared.

But the development of human societies has not been guided by human
reason. Men have not consciously made general happiness the end of their
actions. They have been conducted by passion and ambition and have
never known to what goal they were moving. For if reason had presided,
progress would soon have been arrested. To avoid war peoples would have
remained in isolation, and the race would have lived divided for ever
into a multitude of isolated groups, speaking different tongues. All
these groups would have been limited in the range of their ideas,
stationary in science, art, and government, and would never have risen
above mediocrity. The history of China is an example of the results of
restricted intercourse among peoples. Thus the unexpected conclusion
emerges, that without unreason and injustice there would have been no
progress.

It is hardly necessary to observe that this argument is untenable.
The hypothesis assumes that reason is in control among the primitive
peoples, and at the same time supposes that its power would completely
disappear if they attempted to engage in peaceful intercourse. But
though Turgot has put his point in an unconvincing form, his purpose was
to show that as a matter of fact "the tumultuous and dangerous passions"
have been driving-forces which have moved the world in a desirable
direction till the time should come for reaso