Perhaps the last great work of the Enlightenment, this landmark in intellectual history is the Marquis de Condorcet's homage to the human future "emancipated from its chains" and led by "the progress of reason" and "the establishment of liberty". Writing in 1794, while in hiding, under sentence of death from the Jacobins in revolutionary France, Condorcet surveys human history and speculates upon its future. With William Godwin, he is the chief foil of Malthus's Essay on Population. Portrayed by Malthus as an "elate and giddy optimist", Condorcet foresees a future of indefinite progress. Freed from ignorance and superstition, he argues that the human race stands on the threshold of epochal progress and limitless improvement. Condorcet defies modernist stereotypes of the right and the left. He is at once precursor of the free market and social democracy. This new edition of the original 1795 English translation, is the only English translation of a work of Condorcet currently in print.

本書作者、18世紀法國最後的一位哲學傢孔多塞（1743-1794）是啓濛運動最接傑齣的代錶之一，曾有法國大革命的“擎炬人”之稱。作者早年以數學研究而享盛名，1769年入法國科學院，1783年入法蘭西學院，1785年負責法國科學院的工作；他和啓濛運動的領袖人物達朗貝爾、伏爾泰、杜爾哥等人友善，並參與瞭《百科全書》的活動。他親身經曆並參加瞭大革命。由於他與吉倫特黨有聯係並參與瞭製定1793年的吉倫特憲法草案，所以被羅伯斯庇爾政府以反叛罪宣判死刑。他在短期逃匿之後，與1794年春被捕入獄，隨即死在獄中。本書就是作者在逃亡期間寫成的。