ment in
the ideal of Progress. And this principle soon began to affect practice.
Pitt assimilated it when he was a young man, and it is one of the
distinctions of his statesmanship that he endeavoured to apply the
doctrines of his master so far as the prevailing prejudices would allow
him.

3.

A few writers of less weight and fame than Hume or Smith expressly
studied history in the light of Progress. It would not help us, in
following the growth of the idea, to analyse the works of Ferguson,
Dunbar, or Priestley. [Footnote: In his Essay on the History of Civil
Society Adam Ferguson treated the growth of civilisation as due to the
progressive nature of man, which insists on carrying him forward to
limits impossible to ascertain. He formulated the process as a
movement from simplicity to complexity, but contributed little to its
explanation.] But I will quote one passage from Priestley, the most
eminent of the three, and the most enthusiastic for the Progress of man.
As the division of labour--the chief principle of organised society--is
carried further he anticipates that

... nature, including both its materials and its laws, will be more at
our command; men will make their situation in this world abundantly more
easy and comfortable; they will probably prolong their existence in it
and will grow daily more happy.... Thus, whatever was the beginning of
this world, the end will be glorious and paradisiacal beyond what our
imaginations can now conceive. Extravagant as some people may suppose
these views to be, I think I could show them to be fairly suggested by
the true theory of human nature and to arise from the natural course of
human affairs.

[Footnote: This passage of Priestley occurs in his Essay on the First
Principles of Government and on the Nature of Political, Civil, and
Religious Liberty (1768, 2nd ed. 1771), pp. 2-4. His Lectures on History
and General Policy appeared in 1788.

Priestley was a strict utilitarian, who held that there is nothing
intrinsically excellent in justice and veracity apart from their
relation to happiness. The degree of public happiness is measured by
the excellence of religion, science, government, laws, arts, commerce,
conveniences of life, and especially by the degrees of personal security
and personal liberty. In all these the ancients were inferior, and
therefore they enjoyed less happiness. The present state of Europe is
vastly preferable to what it was in any former per