s is moral amelioration; he refers little to scientific or material
progress. For him morality was an absolute obligation founded in the
nature of reason. Such an obligation presupposes an end to be attained,
and this end is a reign of reason under which all men obeying the moral
law mutually treat each other as ends in themselves. Such an ideal state
must be regarded as possible, because it is a necessary postulate of
reason. From this point of view it may be seen that Kant's speculation
on universal history is really a discussion whether the ideal state,
which is required as a subjective postulate in the interest of ethics,
is likely to be realised objectively.

Now, Kant does not assert that because our moral reason must assume the
possibility of this hypothetical goal civilisation is therefore moving
towards it. That would be a fallacy into which he was incapable of
falling. Civilisation is a phenomenon, and anything we know about it can
only be inferred from experience. His argument is that there are actual
indications of progress in this desirable direction. He pointed to the
contemporary growth of civil liberty and religious liberty, and these
are conditions of moral improvement. So far his argument coincides in
principle with that of French theorists of Progress. But Kant goes on
to apply to these data the debatable conception of final causes, and to
infer a purpose in the development of humanity. Only this inference is
put forward as a hypothesis, not as a dogma.

It is probable that what hindered Kant from broaching his theory of
Progress with as much confidence as Condorcet was his perception that
nothing could be decisively affirmed about the course of civilisation
until the laws of its movement had been discovered. He saw that this was
a matter for scientific investigation. He says expressly that the laws
are not yet known, and suggests that some future genius may do for
social phenomena what Kepler and Newton did for the heavenly bodies. As
we shall see, this is precisely what some of the leading French thinkers
of the next generation will attempt to do.

But cautiously though he framed the hypothesis Kant evidently considered
Progress probable. He recognised that the most difficult obstacle to the
moral advance of man lies in war and the burdens which the possibility
of war imposes. And he spent much thought on the means by which war
might be abolished. He published a philosophical essay on Perpetual
Pe