t. No government, however
esteemed, set before itself to achieve what ought to be the sole
object of government, "the greatest happiness of the greatest number
of individuals." Now, for the first time in human history, intellectual
enlightenment, other circumstances fortunately concurring, has brought
about a condition of things, in which this object can no longer be
ignored, and there is a prospect that it will gradually gain the
ascendant. In the meantime, things have improved; the diffusion of
knowledge is daily ameliorating men's lot, and far from envying any
age in the past we ought to consider ourselves much happier than the
ancients.

We may wonder at this writer's easy confidence in applying the criterion
of happiness to different societies. Yet the difficulty of such
comparisons was, I believe, first pointed out by Comte. [Footnote: Cours
de philosophie positive, iv. 379.] It is impossible, he says, to compare
two states of society and determine that in one more happiness was
enjoyed than in the other. The happiness of an individual requires a
certain degree of harmony between his faculties and his environment. But
there is always a natural tendency towards the establishment of such
an equilibrium, and there is no means of discovering by argument or by
direct experience the situation of a society in this respect. Therefore,
he concludes, the question of happiness must be eliminated from any
scientific treatment of civilisation.

Chastellux won a remarkable success. His work was highly praised by
Voltaire, and was translated into English, Italian, and German.
It condensed, on a single issue, the optimistic doctrines of the
philosophers, and appeared to give them a more solid historical
foundation than Voltaire's Essay on Manners had supplied. It provided
the optimists with new arguments against Rousseau, and must have done
much to spread and confirm faith in perfectibility. [Footnote: Soon
after the publication of the book of Chastellux--though I do not
suggest any direct connection--a society of Illuminati, who also called
themselves the Perfectibilists, was founded at Ingoldstadt, who proposed
to effect a pacific transformation of humanity. See Javary, De l'idee de
progres, p. 73.]

CHAPTER X. THE YEAR 2440

1.

The leaders of thought in France did not look far forward into the
future or attempt to trace the definite lines on which the human race
might be expected to develop. They contented themselv