d for in the enunciation
of certain definite doctrines, but in something much wider and more
profound. The _Philosophes_ were important not so much for the answers
which they gave as for the questions which they asked; their real
originality lay not in their thought, but in their spirit. They were the
first great popularizers. Other men before them had thought more
accurately and more deeply; they were the first to fling the light of
thought wide through the world, to appeal, not to the scholar and the
specialist, but to the ordinary man and woman, and to proclaim the
glories of civilization as the heritage of all humanity. Above all, they
instilled a new spirit into the speculations of men--the spirit of hope.
They believed ardently in the fundamental goodness of mankind, and they
looked forward into the future with the certain expectation of the
ultimate triumph of what was best. Though in some directions their
sympathies were limited, their love of humanity was a profound and
genuine feeling which moved them to a boundless enthusiasm. Though their
faith in creeds was small, their faith in mankind was great. The spirit
which filled them was well shown when, during the darkest days of the
Terror, the noble Condorcet, in the hiding-place from which he came
forth only to die, wrote his historical _Sketch of the Progress of the
Human Mind_, with its final chapter foretelling the future triumphs of
reason, and asserting the unlimited perfectibility of man.

The energies of the _Philosophes_ were given a centre and a
rallying-point by the great undertaking of the _Encyclopaedia_, the
publication of which covered a period of thirty years (1751-80). The
object of this colossal work, which contained a survey of human activity
in all its branches--political, scientific, artistic, philosophical,
commercial--was to record in a permanent and concentrated form the
advance of civilization. A multitude of writers contributed to it, of
varying merit and of various opinions, but all animated by the new
belief in reason and humanity. The ponderous volumes are not great
literature; their importance lies in the place which they fill in the
progress of thought, and in their immense influence in the propagation
of the new spirit. In spite of its bulk the book was extremely
successful; edition after edition was printed; the desire to know and to
think began to permeate through all the grades of society. Nor was it
only in France that these e