COMTE
CHAPTER XVII "PROGRESS" IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT
(1830-1851)
CHAPTER XVIII MATERIAL PROGRESS: THE EXHIBITION OF 1851
CHAPTER XIX PROGRESS IN THE LIGHT OF EVOLUTION
EPILOGUE
APPENDIX: NOTES TO THE TEXT
[Proofreaders note: these notes have been
interspersed in the main text as Footnotes]
INTRODUCTION
When we say that ideas rule the world, or exercise a decisive power
in history, we are generally thinking of those ideas which express
human aims and depend for their realisation on the human will, such
as liberty, toleration, equality of opportunity, socialism. Some of
these have been partly realised, and there is no reason why any of
them should not be fully realised, in a society or in the world, if
it were the united purpose of a society or of the world to realise
it. They are approved or condemned because they are held to be good
or bad, not because they are true or false. But there is another
order of ideas that play a great part in determining and directing
the course of man's conduct but do not depend on his will--ideas
which bear upon the mystery of life, such as Fate, Providence, or
personal immortality.
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