226 CONDORCET: A BIOGEAPEtY. 



noble confidence was not betrayed. Marcos entered, even at the peril of 

 bis life, into direct relations with Condorcet. It was he who provided 

 him with the romances which our conliere devoured in large numbers. 

 Madam Veraet felt that through the restlessness of the prisoner, an 

 accident might at any time betray him ; that her efforts would in the 

 end ijrove to be in vain if his mind were not more seriously occupied. 

 At her instigation, Madam de Condorcet, and the friends of her hus- 

 band, entreated him to devote his time to some important composition. 

 Condorcet yielded to their counsel, and commenced his Sletch of a his- 

 toric incture of the progress of the human mind. 



While thus, through the judicious influence of Madam Yernet, Con- 

 dorcet turned his scrutinizing gaze on the social condition of the past and 

 future human race, he succeeded in diverting his thoughts completely 

 from the terrible convulsions in which France was then struggling. In 

 the SJcetch of the progress of the human mind there is not a line in which 

 the acrimony of the proscript has taken the place of the cool reason of 

 the philosopher and the noble desire to promote the advance of civiliza- 

 tion. "Everything tells us that we are on the eve of one of the great 

 revolutions of the human race. * * * The present indications are 

 that it will be a happy one." Thus Condorcet wrote when he was hope- 

 less of escape from the active pursuit of his implacable persecutors; 

 when the sword of death waited to fall only until the identity of the 

 victim could be assured. 



It was in the middle of March, 1794, that Condorcet wrote the last 

 lines of his essay ; to carry the work further without the aid of books 

 was not in the power of any human mind. The work did not see the day 

 until 1795, after the death of the author. Tbe public received it with 

 universal approbation. Two translations — one English, one German — 

 made the Shetch very popular abroad. The convention obtained three 

 thousand copies, which were distributed through the efforts of the com- 

 mittee of public instruction over the entire republic. In the autograph 

 manuscript the work is called not a slcetch but a Programme of a historical 

 picture of the progress of the human mind. Condorcet indicates its object 

 in the following terms : 



" I intend to confine myself to the general traits which characterize 

 the various phases through which the human lace must pass, which 

 sometimes manifest its progress, sometimes its decadence, which betray 

 causes and show their effects. * * * It is not the science of 

 man in general that I undertake to treat ; I wish to show solely how, 

 through time and his own efforts, he has been able to enrich his mind 

 with new truths, to perfect his intelligence, to extend the use of his 

 faculties, and to employ them to better advantage for his own happiness 

 and the common good." 



The work of Condorcet is too well known to require analysis here. 

 How, moreover, can a programme be analyzed ? I will merely draw the 



