verite de la
bouche d'un autre, droit qui fonde seul l'obligation rigoureuse de ne
pas mentir. S'il n'est pas permis de tromper, c'est parceque tromper
quelqu'un, c'est lui faire un tort, ou s'exposer a lui en faire un; mais
le tort suppose un droit, et personne n'a celui de cherche, a s'assurer
les moyens de commettre une injustice._' _Vie de Voltaire_; _Oeuv._ iv.
33, 34. Condorcet might have found some countenance for his sophisms in
Plato (Republ. ii. 383); but even Plato restricted the privilege of
lying to statesmen (iii. 389). He was in a wiser mood when he declared
(_Oeuv._ v. 384) that it is better to be imprudent than a
hypocrite,--though for that matter these are hardly the only
alternatives.

[69] _Oeuv._ vi. 163.

[70] _Ib._ vi. 22.

[71] _Ib._ p. 220.

[72] _Oeuv._ p. 234.

VI.

We have now seen something of Condorcet's ideas of the past, and of his
conception of what he was perhaps the first to call the Science of Man.
Let us turn to his hopes for the future, and one or two of the details
to which his study of the science of man conducted him. It is well to
perceive at the outset that Condorcet's views of the Tenth Epoch, as he
counts the period extending from the French Revolution to the era of the
indefinite perfection of man, were in truth not the result of any
scientific processes whatever, properly so called. He saw, and this is
his merit, that such processes were applicable to the affairs of
society; and that, as he put it, all political and moral errors rest
upon error in philosophy, which in turn is bound up with erroneous
methods in physical science.[73] But in the execution of his plan he
does not succeed in showing the nature of the relations of these
connected forces; still less does he practise the scientific duty, for
illustrating which he gives such well-deserved glory to Newton,[74] of
not only accounting for phenomena, but also of measuring the _quantity_
of forces. His conception, therefore, of future progress, however near
conjecture may possibly have brought him to the truth, is yet no more
than conjecture. The root of it is found in nothing more precise,
definite, or quantified than a general notion gathered from history,
that some portions of the race had made perceptible advances in freedom
and enlightenment, and that we might therefore confidently expect still
further advances to be made in the same direction with an accelerated
rapidity, and with certain advantag