post which gave him
practical control of the government of a large, though barren and
neglected, province. His achievements in the way of administrative
reform here were remarkable, and, had they been generally imitated,
might have brought about a very different state of things in France.
After the death of Louis XV., he was recommended by Maurepas to a far
more important office, the controllership of finance. Here, too, he did
great things; but his attack on the privileged orders was ill-seconded,
and, after holding his post for about two years, he had to resign,
partly, it is true, owing to a certain unaccommodating rigidity of
demeanour, which was one of his least amiable characteristics. He died
in 1781. Turgot's literary work is not extensive, and it is not
distinguished by its style. It consists of certain discourses at the
Sorbonne, of memoirs on various political occasions, of some letters on
usury, of articles in the Encyclopaedia, of which the most noteworthy is
one on endowments, etc. All are remarkable as containing the germs of
what may be accepted as the modern liberal doctrines on the various
points of which they treat, while the second Sorbonne discourse is
entitled to the credit of first clearly announcing the principle of the
philosophy of history, the doctrine, that is to say, that human progress
follows regular laws of development, certain sets of causes invariably
tending to bring about certain sets of results.

[Sidenote: Condorcet.]

With the name of Turgot that of Condorcet is inseparably connected, and
though far less important in the history of thought, it is perhaps more
prominent in the history of literature, for the pupil and biographer (in
both of which relations Condorcet stood to Turgot) was, though a far
less original and vigorous thinker, a better writer than his master and
subject. Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, styled Marquis de Condorcet,
was born in 1743, near St. Quentin, and early distinguished himself both
in mathematics and in the belles lettres. He became Secretary of the
Academy in 1777, and he afterwards wrote the Life of Turgot, whose
method of dealing with economic questions (a more practical and less
abstract one than that of the earlier economists) he had already
followed. He took a considerable part in the French Revolution, serving
both in the Legislative Assembly and in the Convention. In the latter he
became identified with the Girondist party, and shared their tro