I. State of nature — 2. March of progress — 3. Degenerate peoples—

4. Civilisation — 5. Progress of human legislation — 6. Influence of spiritism upon progress.
State of Nature.
776. Are the state of nature and the law of nature the same thing ?
" No ; the state of nature is the primitive state. Civilisa- tion is incompatible with the state of nature, while the law of nature contributes to the progress of the human race."
The " state of nature " is the infancy of the human race, and the starting point of its intellectual and moral development. Man, being perfectible, and containing in himself the germ of his amelioration, is no more destined to live for ever in the state of nature, than he is des- tined to live for ever in the state of infancy ; the state of nature is tran- sitory, and man outgrows it through progress and civilisation. The "law of nature," on the contrary, rules the human race throughout its entire career ; and men improve in proportion as they comprehend this law more clearly, and conform their action more closely to its require- ments.
777. Man, in the state of nature, having fewer wants, escapes many of the tribulations he creates for himself in a state of greater advancement. What is to be thought of the opinion of those who regard the former state as being that of the most perfect felicity obtainable upon the earth ?
" Such felicity is that of the brute ; but there are persons who understand no other. It is being happy after the fashion of the brutes. Children, too, are happier than grown-up people."
778. Could mankind retrograde towards the state of nature ?
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" No ; mankind must progress unceasingly, and cannot return to the state of infancy. If men have to progress, it is because God so wills it; to suppose that they could retrograde towards the primitive condition would be to deny the law of progress."
March of Progress.
779. Does man contain in himself the force that impels him onward in the path of progress, or is his progress only the product of instruction ?
" Man is developed of himself, naturally. But all men do not progress at the same rate, nor in the same manner ; and it is thus that the most advanced are made to help forward the others, through social contact."
780. Does moral progress always follow intellectual pro- gress ?
" It is a consequence of the latter, but does not always follow it immediately" (192-365.)
— How can intellectual progress lead to moral progress? " By making man comprehend good and evil ; he can
then choose between them. The development of free-will follows the development of the intelligence and increases the responsibility of human action."
— How comes it, then, that the most enlightened nations are often the most perverted ?
" Complete and integral progress is the aim of existence ; but nations, like individuals, only reach it step by step. "Until the moral sense is developed in them, they may even employ their intelligence in doing evil. Moral sense and intellect are two forces which only arrive at equilibrium in the long run." (365-75 *-j
781. Has man the power of arresting the march of pro- gress ?
" No ; but he has sometimes that of hindering it."
— What is to be thought of the men who attempt to arrest the march of progress, and to make the human race go backwards ?
302 BOOK III. CHAP. VIII.
"They ar,e wretched weaklings whom God will chastise ; they will be overthrown by the torrent they have tried to arrest."
Progress being a condition of human nature, it is not in the power of any one to prevent it. It is a living force that bad laws may hamper, but not stifle. When these laws become incompatible with progress, progress breaks them down with all those who attempt to hold them up ; and it will continue to do so until man has brought his laws into harmony with the divine justice which wills the good of all, and the abolition of all laws that are made for the strong, and against the weak.
782. Are there not men who honestly obstruct progress while believing themselves to be helping it forward, because, judging the matter from their own point of view, they often regard as " progress " what is not really such ?
" Yes ; there are persons who push their little pebbles under the great wheel; but they will not keep it from going on."
783. Does the improvement of the human race always proceed by slow progression ?
" There is the regular slow progress that inevitably results from the force of things; but, when a people does not advance quickly enough, God also prepares for it, from time to time, a physical or moral shock that hastens its transfor mation."
Man cannot remain perpetually in ignorance, because he must reach the goal marked out for him by Providence : he is gradually enlight ■ ened by the force of things. Moral revolutions, like social revolutions., are prepared, little by little, in the ideas of a people ; they go on ger- minating for centuries, and at length suddenly burst forth, overthrowing the crumbling edifice of the past, which is no longer in harmony with the new wants and new aspirations of the day.
Man often perceives, in these public commotions, only the momen- tary disorder and confusion that affect him in his material interests ; but he who raises his thoughts above his own personality admires the providential working which brings good out of evil. Such commo- tions are the tempest and the storm that purify the atmosphere after having disturbed it.
784. Man's perversity is very great; does he not seem to be going back instead of advancing, at least, as regards morality ?
"You are mistaken. Look at the human race as a
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whole, and you will see that it is advancing; for it has arrived at a clearer perception of what is evil, and every- day witnesses the reform of some abuse. The excess of evil is required to show you the necessity of good and of reforms."
785. What is the greatest obstacle to progress?
" Pride and selfishness. I refer to moral progress ; for intellectual progress is always going on, and would even seem, at the first glance, to give redoubled activity to those vices, by developing ambition and the love of riches, which, however, in their turn, stimulate man to the researches that enlighten his mind, for it is thus that all things are linked together, in the moral world as in the physical world, and that good is brought even out of evil; but this state of things will only last for a time, and will change, as men be- come aware that, beyond the circle of terrestrial enjoyments, there is a happiness infinitely greater and infinitely more lasting." (See Selfishness, chap, xii.)
There are two kinds of progress, that mutually aid one another, and yet do not proceed side by side — intellectual progress, and moral pro- gress. Among civilised peoples the first is receiving, at the present day, abundant encouragement ; and it has accordingly reached a degree of advancement unknown to past ages. The second is very far from having reached the same point ; although, if we compare the social usages of periods separated by a few centuries, we are compelled to admit that progress has also been made in this direction. Why then should the ascensional movement stop short in the region of morality any more than in that of intelligence ? Why should there not be as great a difference between the morality of the nineteenth and the twenty- fourth centuries as between that of the fourteenth and the nineteenth? To doubt of the continuity of moral progress would be to assume either that the human race has reached the summit of perfection, which would be absurd, or that it is not morally perfectable, which is disproved by experience.
Degenerate Peoples.
786. History shows us many peoples who, after having been subjected to shocks that have overthrown their nation- ality, have relapsed into barbarism. What progress has there been made in such cases ?
" When your house threatens to fall about your ears, you
z
304 BOOK III. CHAP. VIII.
pull it down, in order to build another, stronger and more commodious ; but, until the latter is built, there is trouble and confusion in your dwelling.
" Comprehend this also : you are poor and live in a hovel ; you become rich, and quit the hovel to live in a palace. Then comes a poor devil, such as you formerly were, and takes possession of the hovel you have quitted ; and he is a gainer by the move, for he was previously altogether without shelter. Learn from this that the spirits now in- carnated in the people that you call ' degenerate ' are not those who composed that people in the time of its splen- dour ; those spirits, being of advanced degree, have gone to reside in nobler habitations, and have progressed, while others less advanced have taken their vacated places, which they too will vacate in their turn/'
787. Are there not races that, by their nature, are in* capable of progress ?
" Yes, but they are day by day becoming annihilated corporeally"
— What will be the future fate of the souls that animate those races ?
" They, like all others, will arrive at perfection by pass- ing through other existences. God deprives no one of the general heritage. "
— The most civilised men may, then, have been savages and cannibals ?
" You, yourself, have been such, more than once, before becoming what you now are."
788. The various peoples are collective individualities, that pass, like individuals, through infancy, manhood, and decrepitude. Does not this truth, attested by history, seem to imply that the most advanced peoples of this century will have their decline and their end, like those of an- tiquity?
" Those peoples that only live the life of the body, those whose greatness is founded only upon physical force and territorial extension, are born, grow, and die, because the
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strength of a people becomes exhausted like that of a man ; those whose selfish laws are opposed to the progress of enlightenment and of charity die, because light kills dark- ness, and charity kills selfishness. But there is for nations, as for individuals, the life of the soul ; and those whose laws are in harmony with the eternal laws of the Creator will continue to live, and will be the guiding-torch of the other nations."
789. Will progress ultimately unite all the peoples of the earth into a single nation ?
" No, not into a single nation ; that is impossible, because the diversities of climate give rise to diversities of habits and of needs that constitute diverse nationalities, each of which will always need laws appropriate to its special habits and needs. But charity knows nothing of latitudes, and makes no distinction between the various shades of human colour; and when the law of God shall be everywhere the basis of human law, the law of charity will be practised between nation and nation as between man and man, and all will then live in peace and happiness, because no one will attempt to wrong his neighbour, or to live at his expense."
The human race progresses through the progress of individuals, who gradually become enlightened and improved, and who, when they constitute a majority, obtain the upper hand, and draw the rest for- ward. Men of genius arise from time to time and give an impulse to the work of advancement ; and men having authority, instruments of God, effect in the course of a few years what the race, left to itself, would have taken several centuries to accomplish.
The progress of nations renders still more evident the justice of rein- carnation. Through the efforts of its best men, a nation is made to advance intellectually and morally; and the nation thus advanced is happier both in this world and in the next. But during its slow pas- sage through successive centuries, thousands of its people have died every day. What will be the fate of those who have thus fallen on the way? Does their relative inferiority deprive them of the happiness reserved for those who came later? Or will their happiness be always proportioned to that inferiority? The divine justice could not permit so palpable an injustice. Through the plurality of existences, the same degree of happiness is obtainable by all, for no one is excluded from the heritage of progress. Those who have lived in a period of bar- barism, come back in a period of civilisation among the same people
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