evelopment from generation to generation, then we have
before us the picture of the progress of the human mind. This progress
is subject to the same general laws that are to be observed in the
development of the faculties of individuals, for it is the result of
that development, considered at the same time in a great number of
individuals united in society. But the result that presents itself at
any one instant depends upon that which was offered by the instants
preceding; in turn it influences the result in times still to follow.'

This picture will be of a historical character, inasmuch as being
subject to perpetual variations it is formed by the observation in due
order of different human societies in different epochs through which
they have passed. It will expose the order of the various changes, the
influence exercised by each period over the next, and thus will show in
the modifications impressed upon the race, ever renewing itself in the
immensity of the ages, the track that it has followed, and the exact
steps that it has taken towards truth and happiness. Such observation of
what man has been and of what he is, will then lead us to means proper
for assuring and accelerating the fresh progress that his nature allows
us to anticipate still further.[56]

'If a man is able to predict with nearly perfect confidence, phenomena
with whose laws he is acquainted; if, even when they are unknown to him,
he is able, in accordance with the experience of the past, to foresee
with a large degree of probability the events of the future, why should
we treat it as a chimerical enterprise, to trace with some
verisimilitude the picture of the future destinies of the human race in
accordance with the results of its history? The only foundation of
belief in the natural sciences is this idea, that the general laws,
known or unknown, which regulate the phenomena of the universe are
necessary and constant; and why should this principle be less true for
the development of the moral and intellectual faculties of man than for
other natural operations? In short, opinions grounded on past experience
in objects of the same order being the single rule of conduct for even
the wisest men, why should the philosopher be forbidden to rest his
conjectures on the same base, provided that he never attributes to them
a degree of certainty beyond what is warranted by the number, the
constancy, and the accuracy of his observations?'[57]

Thus Condorce