Title page from Outlines of an historical view of the progress of the human mind

Outlines of an historical view of the progress of the human mind

Condorcet wrote this while in prison awaiting execution by the Jacobins. It is an optimistic view of the progress the human race will undergo when political and economic liberty are gradually introduced.

Key Quotes

Politics & Liberty

Our hopes, as to the future condition of the human species, may be reduced to three points: the destruction of inequality between different nations; the progress of equality in one and the same nation; and lastly, the real improvement of man. Will not every nation one day arrive at the state of…

Revolution

It was more complete, more entire than that of America, and of consequence was attended with greater convulsions in the interior of the nation, because the Americans, satisfied with the code of civil and criminal legislation which they had derived from England, having no corrupt system of finance…