ocial concert that had been _pathologically_ extorted from
the mere necessities of situation, into a _moral_ union founded on the
reasonable choice.' Hence the highest problem for man is the
establishment of a universal civil society, founded on the empire of
political justice; and 'the history of the human species as a whole may
be regarded as the unravelling of a hidden plan of nature for
accomplishing a perfect state of civil constitution for society in its
internal relations (and, as the condition of that, in its external
relations also), as the sole state of society in which the tendencies of
human nature can be all and fully developed.' Nor is this all. We shall
not only be able to unravel the intricate web of past affairs, but shall
also find a clue for the guidance of future statesmen in the art of
political prediction. Nay more, this clue 'will open a consolatory
prospect into futurity, in which at a remote distance we shall observe
the human species seated upon an eminence won by infinite toil, where
all the germs are unfolded which nature has implanted within it, and
its destination on this earth accomplished.'

That this conception involves an assumption about tendencies and final
purposes which reverses the true method of history, and moreover reduces
what ought to be a scientific inquiry to be a foregone justification of
nature or providence, should not prevent us from appreciating its signal
merits in insisting on a systematic presentation of the collective
activity of the race, and in pointing out, however cursorily, the use of
such an elucidation of the past in furnishing the grounds of practical
guidance in dealing with the future and in preparing it. Considering the
brevity of this little tract, its pregnancy and suggestiveness have not
often been equalled. We have seen enough of it here to enable us to
realise the differences between this and the French school. We miss the
wholesome objectivity, resulting from the stage which had been reached
in France by the physical sciences. Condorcet's series of _eloges_ shows
unmistakably how deep an impression the history of physical discovery
had made upon him, and how clearly he understood the value of its
methods. The peculiar study which their composition had occasioned him
is of itself almost enough to account for the fact that a conception
which had long been preparing in the superior minds of the time, should
fully develop itself in him rather than in any