Intimately bound up with the idea of freedom is that of progress. For, although our main approach to the discussion of freedom was made by way of the natural sciences, by a critique of physical determinism, and also by way of the problem of personal action, involving a critique of psychological determinism, it must be noted that there have appeared throughout the discussion very clear indications of the vital bearing of freedom upon the wide field of humanity’s development considered as a whole—in short, its history. The philosopher must give some account of history, if he is to leave no gap in his view of the universe. The philosophy of history will obviously be vastly different if it be based on determinism rather than on freedom. When the philosopher looks at history his thoughts must inevitably centre around the idea of progress. He may believe in it or may reject it as an illusion, but his attitude to it will be very largely a reflection of the doctrine which he has formed regarding freedom. The notion of progress is probably the most characteristic feature which distinguishes modern civilisation from those of former times. It would have seemed to the Greeks foolishness. We owe it to the people who, in the modern world, have been what Greece was in the ancient world, the glorious mother of ideas. The eighteenth century was marked in France by a growing belief in progress, which was encouraged by the Encyclopaedists and rose to enthusiasm at the Revolution. Its best expression was that given by Condorcet, himself an Encyclopaedist, and originally a supporter of the Revolution. His _Sketch of an Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind_ was written in 1793 (while its author was threatened with the guillotine[1]), published two years later, and became, in the early years of the nineteenth century, a powerful stimulus to thought concerning progress. Much of the work is defective, but it had a great influence upon Saint-Simon, the early socialists, and upon the doctrines of Auguste Comte, which themselves are immediate antecedents of our own period. We may note briefly here, that Condorcet believed in a sure and infallible progress in knowledge and in social welfare. This is the important doctrine which Saint-Simon and Comte both accepted from him. His ideal of progress is contained in the three watchwords of the Revolution, _Liberté_, _Egalité_, _Fraternité_, particularly the last two. He forecasts an abandonment of militarism, prophesies an era of universal peace, and the reign of equality between the sexes. Equality is a point which he insists upon very keenly, and, although he did not speak of sociology as did Comte, nor of socialism as did Saint-Simon, he claimed that the true history of mankind is the history of the great mass of workers: it is not diplomatic and military, not the record of dazzling deeds of great men. Condorcet, however, was dogmatic in his belief in progress, and he did