The Idea Of Progress | Page 2

happy--has replaced, as a social power, the hope of felicity in another world. Belief in personal immortality is still very widely entertained, but may we not fairly say that it has ceased to be a central and guiding idea of collective life, a criterion by which social values are measured? Many people do not believe in it; many more regard it as so uncertain that they could not reasonably permit it to affect their lives or opinions. Those who believe in it are doubtless the majority, but belief has many degrees; and one can hardly be wrong in saying that, as a general rule, this belief does not possess the imaginations of those who hold it, that their emotions react to it feebly, that it is felt to be remote and unreal, and has comparatively seldom a more direct influence on conduct than the abstract arguments to be found in treatises on morals.
Under the control of the idea of Progress the ethical code recognised in the Western world has been reformed in modern times by a new principle of far-reaching importance which has emanated from that idea. When Isocrates formulated the rule of life, "Do unto others," he probably did not mean to include among "others" slaves or savages. The Stoics and the Christians extended its application to the whole of living humanity. But in late years the rule has received a vastly greater extension by the inclusion of the unborn generations of the future. This principle of duty to posterity is a direct corollary of the idea of Progress. In the recent war that idea, involving the moral obligation of making sacrifices for the sake of future ages, was constantly appealed to; just as in the Crusades, the most characteristic wars of our medieval ancestors, the idea of human destinies then in the ascendant lured thousands to hardship and death.
The present attempt to trace the genesis and growth of the idea in broad outline is a purely historical inquiry, and any discussion of the great issue which is involved lies outside its modest scope. Occasional criticisms on particular forms which the creed of Progress assumed, or on arguments which were used to support it, are not intended as a judgment on its general validity. I may, however, make two observations here. The doubts which Mr. Balfour expressed nearly thirty years ago, in an Address delivered at Glasgow, have not, so far as I know, been answered. And it is probable that many people, to whom six years ago the notion of a sudden decline or break-up of our western civilisation, as a result not of cosmic forces but of its own development, would have appeared almost fantastic, will feel much less confident to-day, notwithstanding the fact that the leading nations of the world have instituted a league of peoples for the prevention of war, the measure to which so many high priests of Progress have looked forward as meaning a long stride forward on the road to Utopia.
The preponderance of France's part in developing the idea is an outstanding feature of its history. France, who, like ancient Greece, has always been a nursing-mother of ideas, bears the principal responsibility for its growth; and if it is French thought that will persistently claim our attention, this is not due to an arbitrary preference on my part or to neglect of speculation in other countries.
J. B. BURY. January, 1920.

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I
SOME INTERPRETATIONS OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY: BODIN AND LE ROY

CHAPTER II
UTILITY THE END OF KNOWLEDGE: BACON

CHAPTER III
CARTESIANISM

CHAPTER IV
THE DOCTRINE OF DEGENERATION: THE ANCIENTS AND MODERNS

CHAPTER V
THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE: FONTENELLE

CHAPTER VI
THE GENERAL PROGRESS OF MAN: ABBE DE SAINT-PIERRE

CHAPTER VII
NEW CONCEPTIONS OF HISTORY: MONTESQUIEU, VOLTAIRE, TURGOT

CHAPTER VIII
THE ENCYCLOPAEDISTS AND ECONOMISTS

CHAPTER IX
WAS CIVILISATION A MISTAKE? ROUSSEAU, CHASTELLUX

CHAPTER X
THE YEAR 2440

CHAPTER XI
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: CONDORCET

CHAPTER XII
THE THEORY OF PROGRESS IN ENGLAND

CHAPTER XIII
GERMAN SPECULATIONS ON PROGRESS

CHAPTER XIV
CURRENTS OF THOUGHT IN FRANCE AFTER THE REVOLUTION

CHAPTER XV
THE SEARCH FOR A LAW OF PROGRESS: I. SAINT-SIMON

CHAPTER XVI
SEARCH FOR A LAW OF PROGRESS: II. COMTE

CHAPTER XVII
"PROGRESS" IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT (1830-1851)

CHAPTER XVIII
MATERIAL PROGRESS: THE EXHIBITION OF 1851

CHAPTER XIX
PROGRESS IN THE LIGHT OF EVOLUTION
EPILOGUE
APPENDIX: NOTES TO THE TEXT [Proofreaders note: these notes have been interspersed in the main text as Footnotes]

INTRODUCTION
When we say that ideas rule the world, or exercise a decisive power in history, we are generally thinking of those ideas which express human aims and depend for their realisation on the human will, such as liberty, toleration, equality of opportunity, socialism. Some of these have been partly realised, and there is no reason why any of them should not be fully realised, in a society or in the world, if it were the united purpose of a society or of the world to realise it. They are approved or condemned because they are held to be good or bad,