“ In the second epoch—the pastoral state—property is introduced, and along with it inequality of conditions, and even slavery, but also leisure to cultivate intelligence, to invent some of the simpler arts, and to acquire some of the more elementary truths of science. In the third epoch—the agricultural state—as leisure and wealth are greater, labour better distributed and applied, and the means of communication increased and extended, progress is still more rapid. ”

“ In 1786 Condorcet published his Vie de Turgot, and in 1787 his Vie de Voltaire. Both works were widely and eagerly read, and are perhaps, from a merely literary point of view, the best of Condorcet’s writings.
The political tempest which had been long gathering over France now began to break and to carry everything before it. Condorcet was, of course, at once hurried along by it into the midst of the conflicts and confusion of the Revolution. He greeted with enthusiasm the advent of democracy, and laboured hard to secure and hasten its triumph. ”

“ The work of constitution-making had been interrupted by the trial of Louis XVI. Condorcet objected to the assumption of judicial functions by the Convention, objected also on principle to the infliction of the death penalty; but he voted the king guilty of conspiring against liberty and worthy of any penalty short of death, and against the appeal to the people advocated by the Girondists. In the atmosphere of universal suspicion that inspired the Terror his independent attitude could not, however, be maintained with impunity. ”

“ He represents man as starting from the lowest stage of barbarism, with no superiority over the other animals save that of bodily organization, and as advancing uninterruptedly, at a more or less rapid rate, in the path of enlightenment, virtue and happiness. ”

“ The stages which the human race has already gone through, or, in other words, the great epochs of history, are regarded as nine in number. The first three can confessedly be described only conjecturally from general observations as to the development of the human faculties, and the analogies of savage life. ”

“ But he affirms that these conditions are compatible with endless progress, and that the human mind can assign no fixed limits to its own advancement in knowledge and virtue, or even to the prolongation of bodily life. This theory explains the importance he attached to popular education, to which he looked for all sure progress. ”

“ In the first epoch, men are united into hordes of hunters and fishers, who acknowledge in some degree public authority and the claims of family relationship, and who make use of an articulate language. ”