calm climate of England, it appears like a cold
reflection.

Again, English thinkers were generally inclined to hold, with Locke,
that the proper function of government is principally negative, to
preserve order and defend life and property, not to aim directly at the
improvement of society, but to secure the conditions in which men may
pursue their own legitimate aims. Most of the French theorists believed
in the possibility of moulding society indefinitely by political action,
and rested their hopes for the future not only on the achievements of
science, but on the enlightened activity of governments. This difference
of view tended to give to the doctrine of Progress in France more
practical significance than in England.

But otherwise British soil was ready to receive the idea. There was the
same optimistic temper among the comfortable classes in both countries.
Shaftesbury, the Deist, had struck this note at the beginning of the
century by his sanguine theory, which was expressed in Pope's banal
phrase: "Whatever is, is right," and was worked into a system by
Hutcheson. This optimism penetrated into orthodox circles. Progress, far
from appearing as a rival of Providence, was discussed in the interests
of Christianity by the Scotch theologian, Turnbull. [Footnote: The
Principles of Modern Philosophy, 1740.]

2.

The theory of the indefinite progress of civilisation left Hume cold.
There is little ground, he argued, to suppose that "the world" is
eternal or incorruptible. It is probably mortal, and must therefore,
with all things in it, have its infancy, youth, manhood, and old age;
and man will share in these changes of state. We must then expect that
the human species should, when the world is in the age of manhood,
possess greater bodily and mental vigour, longer life, and a stronger
inclination and power of generation. But it is impossible to determine
when this stage is reached. For the gradual revolutions are too slow to
be discernible in the short period known to us by history and tradition.
Physically and in mental powers men have been pretty much the same in
all known ages. The sciences and arts have flourished now and have again
decayed, but when they reached the highest perfection among one people,
the neighbouring peoples were perhaps wholly unacquainted with them. We
are therefore uncertain whether at present man is advancing to his point
of perfection or declining from it. [Footnote: Essay on the Pop