Condorcet, ‘Sketch for an Historical Picture of the
Progress of the Human Mind’ [MtP, 12 pp]
If we can predict phenomena with almost complete confidence when we know their laws, and if,
even when we are ignorant of these laws, past experience allows us to anticipate future events with
a great degree of probability, why should it seem an impossible undertaking to project the future
destiny of the human species with some plausibility from the results of its history?
Our hopes for the future condition of the human species can be reduced to three important points
- the destruction of inequality among nations
- the progress of equality within each people
- the real betterment of humankind
Are there regions of the globe where the inhabitants have been condemned by their environment
never to enjoy liberty, never to exercise their reason?
Do the differences in enlightenment, resources, or wealth so far observed between the different
classes within civilized peoples – the inequality that the initial advances of society augmented and
may even have produced – derive from the very nature of civilization or from the current
imperfections of the social art?
Might it also be the case that the human species will necessarily better itself through new discoveries
in the sciences and the arts and, as an inevitable consequence, in the means of individual wellbeing
and common prosperity
through progress in the principles of conduct and the practice of morality
or through optimization of the intellectual, moral, and physical capacities that may result
from improving the instruments that intensify these capacities and guide their use, or even
the natural constitution of humankind?
In answering these three questions, we will find that past experience, observation of the progress
made so far by the sciences and by civilization, and analysis of the advance of the human mind and
the development of its capacities yield the strongest grounds for believing that nature has set no
limit to our hopes
A glance at the present state of the globe reveals, in the first place, that the principles of the French
Constitution are accepted already by every enlightened person
In considering different nations, we shall see in each one the particular obstacles opposing this
revolution or the conditions favouring it
Can there be any doubt that good sense or the absurd divisions among the European nations will
further the slow but inevitable effects of the progress of their colonies, resulting soon in the
independence of the New World?
Review the history of our enterprises and settlements in Africa and Asia and you will see our
commercial monopolies, our betrayals, our bloodthirsty contempt for people of another colour or
creed, the insolence of our usurpations, and the extravagant proselytizing or the intrigues of our
priests destroying the sentiment of respect and goodwill initially inspired by the superiority of our
knowledge and the benefits of our commerce
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, But the moment is surely approaching when we shall stop appearing to them only as corruptors and
tyrants and become their useful instruments or generous liberators
Sugar cultivation, as it is established in the immense African continent, will de story the shameful
exploitation that has corrupted and depopulated that continent for two centuries
Already, in Great Britain, friends of humanity have set an example
and if the Machiavellian government of this country, forced to respect public reason, has not
dared oppose it, what can we not expect from this same spirit once a servile and corrupt
constitution has been reformed and rendered worthy of a humane and generous nation?
Then the European peoples, limiting themselves to free commerce, and too enlightened regarding
their own rights to disregard those of other peoples, will respect the independence they have
hitherto violated so arrogantly
In these vast regions there are numerous peoples who seem to be waiting only to receive from us the
means to become civilized, only to find brothers among Europeans and to become their friends and
disciples
We shall show how these developments will be an ineluctable result, not only of European progress
but also of the liberty that the French and North American republics have both the real interest and
the power to bring to African and Asian commerce, and how they must necessarily spring either from
the newly acquired good sense of the European nations or from their obstinate attachment to their
commercial prejudices
We shall demonstrate that a new Tartar invasion from Asia is the only circumstance that could
prevent this revolution, and that such an event is no longer possible
The advance of these peoples should be more rapid and assured than ours because they should
receive from us what we have had to discover, and because they should only need to be able to
follow the explanations and proofs we offer orally and in books to grasp the simple truths and certain
methods we have attained only after long error
The time will therefore come when the sun shines only on free human beings who recognize no
other master but their reason
when tyrants and slaves, priests and their benighted or hypocritical minions exist only in the
history books and the theatre, and our only concern with them is to pity their victims and
their dupes, maintain a useful vigilance motivated by horror at their excesses, and know how
to recognize and stifle, by the weight of reason, the first seeds of superstition and tyranny
that ever dare to reappear
In reviewing the history of societies, we will have occasion to show that there is often a great gap
between the rights the law recognizes as belonging to citizens and the rights they actually enjoy,
between the equality established by political institutions and that existing among individuals
These disparities have three principal causes
inequality of wealth
inequality of condition between the individual who has assured means of subsistence
transmissible to his family and the individual for whom these means depend on his lifespan
or, rather, on the length of time during which he is able to work
and finally, inequality of instruction
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