men to fix hope and endeavour on the future, and led the
world at twenty-three. Turgot, when he proclaimed that
upward growth and progress is the law of human life, was
studying to become a priest. To us, in an age of science,
it has become difficult to imagine Christianity without the
attribute of development and the faculty of improving
society as well as souls. But the idea was acquired slowly.
Under the burden of sin, men accustomed themselves to
the consciousness of degeneracy; each generation confessed
that they were unworthy children of their parents, and
awaited with impatience the approaching end. From
Lucretius and Seneca to Pascal and Leibniz we encounter
a few dispersed and unsupported passages, suggesting
advance towards perfection, and the flame that brightens
as it moves from hand to hand; but they were without
mastery or radiance. Turgot at once made the idea
habitual and familiar, and it became a pervading force in
thoughtful minds, whilst the new sciences arose to confirm
it. He imparted a deeper significance to history, giving
it unity of tendency and direction, constancy where there
had been motion, and development instead of change.
The progress he meant was moral as much as intellectual;
and as he professed to think that the rogues of his day
would have seemed sanctified models to an earlier century,
he made his calculations without counting the wickedness
of men. His analysis left unfathomed depths for future
explorers, for Lessing and still more for Hegel; but he
taught mankind to expect that the future would be unlike
the past, that it would be better, and that the experience
of ages may instruct and warn, but cannot guide or control.
He is eminently a benefactor to historical study; but he
forged a weapon charged with power to abolish the product
of history and the existing order. By the hypothesis of
progress, the new is always gaining on the old; history is
the embodiment of imperfection, and escape from history
became the watchword of the coming day. Condorcet,
the master's pupil, thought that the world might be
emancipated by burning its records.
Turgot was too discreet for such an excess, and he
