is not tending to any prescribed end but developing a
result. And the chief result is the progress of the human mind. "Amidst
so many ravages and so much destruction, we see a love of order secretly
animating the human species, and forestalling its utter ruin. It is one
of the springs of nature ever recovering its energy; it is the source
of the formation of the codes of nations; it causes the law and the
ministers of the law to be respected in Tinquin and in the islands
of Formosa as well as in Rome." Man thus possesses, said Voltaire,
a "principle of Reason," namely, a "an instinct for engineering"
suggesting to him useful implements;[3120] also an instinct of right
suggesting to him his moral conceptions. These two instincts form a
part of his makeup; he has them from his birth, "as birds have their
feathers, and bears their hair. Hence he is perfectible through nature,
and merely conforms to nature in improving his mind and in bettering
his condition. Extend the idea farther along with Turgot and
Condorcet,[3121] and, with all its exaggerations, we see arising, before
the end of the century, our modern theory of progress, that which founds
all our aspirations on the boundless advance of the sciences, on the
increase of comforts which their applied discoveries constantly bring
to the human condition, and on the increase of good sense which their
discoveries, popularized, slowly deposit in the human brain.

A second principle has to be established to complete the foundations
of history. Discovered by Montesquieu it still to-day serves as
a constructive support, and, if we resume the work, as if on the
substructure of the master's edifice, it is simply owing to accumulated
erudition placing at our disposal more substantial and more abundant
materials. In human society all parts are interdependent; no
modification of one can take place without effecting proportionate
changes in the others. Institutions, laws and customs are not mingled
together, as in a heap, through chance or caprice, but connected one
with the other through convenience or necessity, as in a harmony.[3122]
According as authority is in all, in several or in one hand, according
as the sovereign admits or rejects laws superior to himself, with
intermediary powers below him, everything changes or tends to differ in
meaning and in importance:

* public intelligence,

* education,

* the form of judgments,

* the nature and order of penalties,

* the