CONDOECET: A BIOGEAFHY. 227 



attention of unprejudiced minds to the curious chapter wbere, dwelling 

 upon the future progress of the human mind, the author shows the 

 necessity, the justice (these are his expressions) of establishing an 

 entire equality of civil and political rights between the individuals of 

 the two sexes, and proclaims, besides, the indefinite perfectibility of the 

 human race. 



The latter philosophical idea was opposed with extreme violence in the 

 beginning of this century by all the popular writers. According to 

 them the doctrine of indefinite perfectibility is not only untrue, but 

 productive of disastrous consequences. The Journal des Dchats pre- 

 sented it ^'as favoring too much the projects of the seditious." In the 

 severe criticism, made of it in the Mcrcure, in reference to a work of 

 Madam de Stael, Fontaues flattering the passions of Napoleon, even 

 maintained this dream of perfectibility to be a terrible menace to gov- 

 ernments. Finally, to weaken (according to the ideas of the day) the 

 rights of this philosophical doctrine to any serious consideration, it 

 was pretended that Voltaire was its first, its true originator. This as- 

 sertion, however, could not well be sustained. The idea of perfectibility 

 is in fact found in Bacon, in Pascal, in Descartes. Nowhere, however, 

 is it more clearly expressed than in this passage from Bossuet: "After 

 six thousand years of observation the human mind is not yet exhausted ; 

 it investigates, it discovers still, and may do so to infinity ; idleness 

 alone can limit its knowledge and its inventions." 



The merit of Condorcet in regard to this particular subject is confined 

 to having studied by means of data furnished through modern science, 

 and by ingenious association of the facts obtained, the hypothesis of an 

 indefinite perfectibility relative to the duration of thelife of man, and 

 his intellectual faculties. But he was, I believe, the first to extend the 

 system so as to induce the hope of the indefinite perfection of the moral 

 facDlties. Thns I read in his work "that a day will come when our 

 interests and our passions will have no more influence upon the judg- 

 ments which control the will than they have now upon scientific opin- 

 ions." Here, without entirely differing from the author, I would say he 

 makes a prediction it will require a long time to fulfil. 



The programme was originally intended to have been followed by a 

 Tableau complet (a complete picture) of the i)rogress of the human mind. 

 This picture, composed principally of facts, of historical documents, and 

 of dates, was not finished. The editors of 1804 published some frag- 

 ments of it; other portions are found in the papers of M. and Mme. 

 O'Connor. Let us hope that filial piety will favor the public with the 

 rest. I dare to hope that it will establish the judgment given by Dau- 

 non of the sketch: "I do not know any one, however erudite, either 

 of this or any other nation, who deprived as Condorcet was of books, 

 and with no other guide than his memory, could have composed such a 

 work." 



As soon as the fever of authorship of our confi^rc w^as abated, his fears 



