Outlines of an Historical View of the Progress of the Human Mind
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Adams#: Adams 290.15 Title: Outlines of an historical view of the progress of the human mind
Author: Condorcet, Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat
Page: front matter
1811
The rapid progress of the the mind to perfection has been the commonplace topic of declamation for half a century. But I can see no other end they have in view as their ultimate object than to bring men back to the state of mind so frankly avowed by Tacitus and Quinctilius – absolute doubt, whether Chance or Fate governs the world. But it will be found that men must be governed as well as cultivated. Without government there is not a more savage beast of the forest.
The philosophers of France were too rash and hasty. They were as artful, as selfish, and as hypocritical as priests and politicians of Babylon, Persia, Egypt, India, Greece, Rome, Turkey, Germany, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain,Italy, or England. They understood not what they were about. They miscalculated their forces and resources; and were consequently overwhelmed in destruction with all their theories.
The precipitation and temerity of philosophers have, I fear, retarded the progress of improvement and amelioration in the condition of mankind for at least a hundred years.
The public mind was improving in knowledge and the public heart in humanity, equity, and benevolence: The fragments of feudality, the Inquisition, the rack, the cruelty of punishment, Negro slavery were giving way etc. But the philosophers must arrive at perfection, per saltum. Ten times more furious than Jack in the Tale of a Tub they rent and tore the whole garment to pieces and left not one whole thread in it. They have even been compelled to resort to Napoleon, and Gibbon himself was often an advocate for the Inquisition. What an amiable and glorious Equality, Fraternity, and Liberty they have now established in Europe!
Page: half-title page
August 14, 1811 This book is more learned and entertaining than The Sophiometer of John Stewart, the pedestrian traveler, which I received from him in England three days ago: but not much more solid.
Manilius in his Astronomicon has given us quite as good an account of the future progress of ratio.
The logos of Plato, The ratio of Manilius, and the mind of Condorcet, all plausible and specious as they are, will be three thousand years longer more delusive than useful. Not one of them takes human nature as it is for his foundation. Equality is one of those equivocal words which the philosophy of the 18th century has made fraudulent. The word as it is used is a swindler. In the last twenty-five years it has cheated millions out of their lives and tens of millions out of their property.
Page: [i]
Was the faction of Brissot, Condorcet, and company less sanguinary than that of Robespierre? His fugitive pieces were as erroneous and as fatal in one extreme as the Writings of Hobbes and Filmer in the other.
Sublimely inattentive to himself!!! Panegyric! How art thou prostituted?
No man was ever more perfectly under the absolute dominion of party passions.
Page: ii
Has superstition received its last blow?
Are the frailties of self love banished?
In this prayer I unite most devoutly.
Page: iii
Amen. As a writer he would have done little harm, though extremely erroneous in many things: but as an active legislator he contributed to destroy all the good he aimed at. He might and probably did mean well: but his ignorance and inexperience in the nature of free government, like his friends Turgot and Rochefoucault, ruined his country.
1811
These three are memorable examples of the profoundest science, most extensive literature, united with total ignorance and palpable darkness in the science of government with dispositions too to equity, humanity, and benevolence toward their country and mankind.
This death is indeed one of the characteristics of the era. It was suicide by voluntary poison. It was an effect of his own system, of a government in one assembly. It was the fruit of the tyranny of his own pretended democratic majority without a balance or check, which he abhorred.
Page: 4
Immensity of ages, i.e from eternity I suppose he means. For I presume he was no believer in Creation.
No bounds agreed. What then? Will man ever be free from disease, vice, and death?
This is more than can be proved.
Page: 5
A better form than yours. And Turgot's and Rochefaucault's, in one assembly.
Page: 9
Genius is now deified and substituted for heathen gods and Roman Catholic saints. Genius is now the mythology of French philosophers. Because men of genius want to be worshipped.
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Natural history of speech. Brightland, Harris, Court de Gebelin.
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Grand indeed! but will it be for better or worse?
Aye, Sir.
Aye, Sir.
Page: 23
Origin of justice, benevolence, and patriotism, according to Condorcet.
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The god Genius again!
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Schools, Colleges, Academies, Priests, Nobles.
Are not the pretensions of genius let up by this visionary, as dangerous and indeed in the end a worse system?
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These were your men of genius, the ethereal spirits of Bolingbroke, Condorcet. There never was a more flagrant one among them all than yourself, nor one who opened wider the box of Pandora. The credulity of dupes and the cunning of imposters was never more gross or glaring than in the French Revolution.
Page: 30
This difference existed equally in the hunting and fishing life. One man had more and better bows and nets and greater skill in using them.
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Unequal wealth.
Hospitality improves but begins not with pastoral life. It exists among all savages.
Page: 34
Man is by nature a religious animal, a religious man will say: and that the philosophers have taught the people atheism and irreligion in order to rob them. Invisible powers that produce sun, moon and stars, animals, vegetables, fruits, flowers, and blossoms form themselves on the human mind as soon as it can think. A sense of his own weakness, wants, and dependence forces him to think whence he came and what produced him and all things.
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Civilization a benefit.
Page: 41
True enough but trite.
Husbandry attaches men to the soil.
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Separation of the arts or division of labor.
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And to him too in their hearts.
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When? Where was such a people? Where is their history, their tradition, or fable? This is all fiction.
All this we see in every commercial nation, however founded–and shall see it. Thou art a quack, Condorcet.
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And that wickedness like yours, Condorcet, has excused if not justified.
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I doubt. Some are said to owe all their genius to them. Churchill, Tom Paine, and others.
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The god Genius again!
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Ay! Family promote arts and sciences!
Moral and political maxims collected by families.
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And to their honest communications of useful knowledge too. You omit all the good and take only the evil.
Informing the people and doing them good.
Page: 59
There never was one of them more arrogant or more mischievous than thyself, Condorcet, or more empirical.
These were benefactors indeed to man.
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In this they resembled thee and thy Parisian philosophers.
This is as applicable to thee as to them.
This also was thy view, and that of thy associates and colleagues.
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Just as you pretended to illuminations and inspirations of genius, superior to other men.
As you and your friends were knaves and dupes to Orleans.
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Catholic Church.
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Just as you and yours have become the dupes of your own atheism and profligacy, your nonsensical notions of liberty, equality, and fraternity. You were all as ignorant of man and government and much more knavish than those you censure so much.
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God grant that your extravagance may not introduce another such age of darkness.
Europe will be another if your plans are pursued.
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As much as I love, esteem and admire the Greeks, I believe the Hebrews have done more to enlighten and civilize the world. Moses did more than all their legislators and philosophers. Ah! let us cast a veil over this awful scene.
Page: 71
Greeks brought knowledge from the East.
In which country has it been so? in Wales? in China?
Aye, the god Genius could govern: but how?
Page: 72
They had not the presumption like Condorcet and company to claim a monopoly of genius.
What is this? the golden rule?
Page: 75
Locke
Page: 76
Socratic school.
Page: 77
Tyranny versus philosophy.
Your philosophy, Condorcet, has waged a more cruel war against truth than ever was attempted by king or priest.
Page: 79
Pericles, no doubt, was a good sans culotte, since he protected the god Genius.
Page: 83
Very different from the French philosophers who aspire at the government of the world.
Page: 86
Religion ought always to aid government. You and company were obliged to call in aid the worship of genius and reason.
All authority in one center and that center the nation. Fool!
Page: 87
What fault do you find it this?
Will not knowledge always be confined chiefly to the rich?
Page: 88
This is stupid and wicked.
He knows that nature has ordained an aristocracy, and he wishes only that his men of genius might have the aristocratic despotism.
There is not among them all a form of government which could hold together any modern commercial nation.
Page: 89
Is there any science not of facts? Newton's science is empirical. Principles drawn from nature are drawn from facts. What is nature but fact? How can reason acknowledge anything but facts and inferences from facts? Behmen and Swedenborg were not more mystical and unintelligible than this philosophical and mathematical charlatan.
Page: 90
This is almost the only sensible paragraph that is of any importance in 90 pages.
Page: 91
Does he know what he means here?
Page: 92
And are not men to be educated to the laws, religion, minds, manners, and tastes of their country?
Obedience to law is a duty of citizens. These conditions ought to be fulfilled with good faith.
Law should be both loved and feared.
Page: 94
In this paragraph, I am inclined to agree with him rather than Rousseau.
This is capable of much discussion: many distinctions, limitations, and explanations.
Page: 106
A modern no less than an ancient passion.
Page: 107
Law written on our hearts.
Page: 112
Morality in all sects and systems the same.
Page: 113
Moral sense.
Politics not tolerated.
Is Paris, pray, to be another Rome? 1798.
Page: 114
Such a rank exists in every nation under the sun and will exist forever.
Never drew blood, till the Gracchi.
Saved however by this mode.
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The French have lately imitated them in spoiling Italy of all its glories.
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One God. The Hebrews knew this long before.
Page: 126
Who? What chiefs?
Page: 144
This picture is very like.
Page: 147
Is there any nation of Indians, Negroes, Tartars, or Hottentots in which the mass is not guided by one of its portions?
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Priestcraft indeed.
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Philosopher's stone.
Page: 156
What a pity! That this man of genius cannot be king and priest for the whole human race! Has not genius been employed to introduce tyranny and superstition as well as to extroduce them?
But was there no genius among the Hebrews? None among the Christians, nor Mahometans! I understand you, Condorcet. It is atheistical genius alone that you would honor or tolerate.
Page: 157
Right. What would you say to the 4 September 1797 and its consequences?
Page: 158
Genius of science beats the genius of superstition.
Page: 159
Unchristian character of the church.
Page: 167
Magna Charta.
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Iustitia est, constans et perpetua voluntas Ius suum cuique tribuendi.
The Decalogue, the Gospel, even the Institutes of Justinian are all ancient and yet assert these rights.
Page: 169
Polity not understood then nor now. 1798
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Genius is still his Moses and the prophets. Inspiration is his system as much as that of a Jew or Christian. The inspiration of genius. Oh, vanity of genius, what mischiefs have you not done?
Page: 174
Suspicion it should be.
Page: 178
You must have your malicious strokes versus kings and priests. I see no probability of such a union.
Page: 179
The empire of the press over the passions in the hands of Marat and others was more tyrannical than the government of Caesar Borgia.
Page: 180
This public opinion is at times as great a tyrant as Marat.
As often in favor of error, absurdity, and vice as of reason and justice.
There has been more new error propagated by the press in the last ten years than in an hundred before. 1798.
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Oh! that it had.
Page: 184
Ask Barras and company 1798. Ask Napoleon in 1811.
Page: 185
This mask can be worn by Talleyrand as well as by Tartuffe or Condorcet.
Page: 188
Five millions! A great number.
The bones in France will plead against atheism too. 1798.
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Who is to punish the crimes of atheism for 10 years past? 1798
Page: 192
Princes arrested the Reformation.
Page: 195
Atheists in Italy.
Page: 197
Vult decipi; decipiatur.
There is no such thing without a supposition of a God. There is no right or wrong in the universe without the supposition of a moral government and an intellectual and moral governor.
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Condorcet thought himself one of these philosophers.
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In France it exists not for Christians or anything else. 1798
Page: 201
Ponset before all of them.
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Let him have his principle: the people have a right to change their rulers from day to day from hour to hour, from minute to minute. What then? Who are the people? The whole nation, not every individual or town or county or province. How shall you know when the whole nation wish to change?
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Who are these?
Page: 217
Yes! it was dangerous to your and Turgot's system of government in one center; which deluged France and Europe in blood.
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What nation? England?
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Completed! Oh!
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Nearly true.
Page: 232
How will you discover the will of the majority of twenty-five millions of Frenchmen?
Page: 233
Compact spurned.
Constitution spurned.
Page: 234
Here are profound truths of philosophy and politics delivered in the slang of party newspapers. His great model of infidelity, Bolingbroke, however, in his Patriot King thinks that a few ethereal spirits are ordained by God to do all the good and all the evil in society. All the rest are Dutch travelers. How shall we decide when such great doctors as Bolingbroke and Condorcet [next page]
Page: 235
disagree? No authority has a right to retain the people in ignorance. Agreed. But twenty-four million and an half in France will retain themselves in ignorance and if left to themselves will soon extinguish the remaining half of a million who can read and write. They would soon exterminate the pen and ink men as aristocrats, oligarchs, priests and tyrants.
I do not believe that he ever read Sidney or Locke. Rousseau had not half the glory of Tom Paine, who carried the theory of liberty much further and asserted that no compact, no constitution, no oaths were binding on mankind.
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Safe the rights of others.
Is it not for this authority to forbid murder, theft, adultery, perjury, etc.? Has it nothing to do but regulate weights, yoke hogs, and govern alewives?
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Feeling! What a foundation of moral obligation!
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Hutchinson.
Conscience.
Page: 246
A right indeed.
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"Society," i.e. in the company he kept: Rochefaucault, Franklin, D'Alembert, Diderot, La Lande. He knew very little of the world. He was as mere a monk as Loyola.
Voltaire, Diderot, Hume, Gibbon, Rousseau, Raynal. Thomas Paine.
Page: 248
According to Condorcet, the writers mentioned in this page adopted all the maxims and practiced all the arts of the Pharisees, the ancient priests of all countries. The Jesuits, the Machiavels etc. etc., to overthrow the institutions that such arts had established.
This new philosophy was, by his own account, as insidious, fraudulent, and cruel as the old policy of priests, nobles, and kings.
Precious confessions!
Page: 249
How did they tolerate this freedom when they possessed power?
How did these writers respect the blood of mankind when they obtained power in 1792, 3, 4, 5 etc.?
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This is too true.
This is very true.
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Economists.
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Beccaria. Oh!!!
But the philosophers as soon as possessed of power suppressed truth with the guillotine, an engine more terrible than the Inquisition or the rack.
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Infinite! Perfectibility!
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Too true!
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But, if this example is followed too closely by European nations, they will repent as France has done.
Fool! Fool!
Is it possible that a philosopher who understood human nature, had read history, and knew anything of government, free or arbitrary, should have written this? What is this idea of an identity of interests? And an equality of rights? Is an equality of rights anywhere more explicitly asserted than in the American Constitution?
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Do as you would be done by: the Golden Rule comprehends all the equality, all the rights and duties of man.
New indeed! But France and America too have found it difficult to practice.
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These philosophers fell like Icarus!
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How have these friends been disappointed?
Sans Culottism destroyed France and then destroyed itself. Danton.
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This and several pages before are to trumpet his hobby of a new heaven, i.e. a government in one democratical representative assembly; in one center and that center, the nation, which he learned from Franklin, Turgot, and Rochefaucault. His majorities in France would always consist of Jacobins and sans cullotes; gorgons, hydras, and chimeras dire.
Pure! Accurate! Profound! Indeed!
What is the difference between an identity of rights and an equality of interests?
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Where is the specious balance now? In 1811. Condorcet! Thou wert as superficial in legislation as abstruse in geometry.
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He should have allowed an equilibrium in politics.
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Astronomy.
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The mythology of the Greeks and the theology of Christian Rome have been the great encouragers and rewards of painters, statuaries, and architects.
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Miracles he means, no doubt. What testimony? That of Moses, Matthew and John? It does not appear that Mark and Luke were eyewitnesses.
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A pleasing hope!
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English and French.
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Asia and Africa.
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History only preserves the memory of the few, i.e. the aristocrats or rather the oligarchs.
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Why indeed?
Hopeless. Not quite hopeless.
Proh dolor!
Not that I know of.
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When? When? 1811. Not yet.
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Oh horror!
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Africa and Asia enlightened.! when?
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Quincy, May 2nd, 1815. Napoleon has been exiled to Elba, popes, Jesuits and inquisitions restored and revived, conformably to the advice of Gibbon to the Portuguese. Napoleon has returned in triumph to France: and now it is said the Congress at Vienna has declared war against him. Is the Congress at Vienna the sovereign of the world? The question now is whether popes, Jesuits, and inquisitions shall rule the human race!