8 Systems of Equality. Bk. iii. 



should the period which he conceives to be so 

 distant, ever arrive, the human race, and the ad- 

 vocates of the perfectibility of man, need not be 

 alarmed at it. He then proceeds to remove the 

 difficulty in a manner which I profess not to un- 

 derstand. Having observed that the ridiculous 

 prejudices of superstition would by that time have 

 ceased to throw over morals a corrupt and de- 

 grading austerity, he alludes either to a promis- 

 cuous concubinage, which would prevent breeding, 

 or to something else as unnatural. To remove 

 the difficulty in this way will surely, in the opinion 

 of most men, be to destroy that virtue and purity 

 of manners, which the advocates of equality and 

 of the perfectibility of man profess to be the end 

 and object of their views. 



The last question which M. Condorcet proposes 

 for examination is the organic perfectibility of 

 man. He observes, if the proofs which have 

 been already given, and which, in their develope- 

 ment, will receive greater force in the work itself, 

 are sufficient to establish the indefinite perfecti- 

 bility of man, upon the supposition of the same 

 natural faculties and the same organization which 

 he has at present; what will be the certainty, 

 what the extent of our hopes, if this organization, 

 these natural faculties themselves, be susceptible 

 of melioration? 



From the improvement of medicine; from the 

 use of more wholesome food and habitations ; from 

 a manner of living, which will improve the strength 

 of the body by exercise, without impairing it by 



