Progress
From cyclical fate to the arrow of improvement — and the doubts that came after.
Each star is a thinker or work; solid lines draw the constellation of a school, dashed threads the passage of ideas between eras.
Select any point on the timeline to read about it.
All entries by era
Progress 400 BCE – 2030 CE
From cyclical fate to the arrow of improvement — and the doubts that came after.
- 380 BCE
Hesiod & the classical world. For much of antiquity, history moves away from a lost Golden Age or turns in endless cycles, as in Hesiod's descending ages of gold, silver, bronze and iron. Time brings decay or repetition, not improvement — the very opposite of a doctrine of progress.
- 426 CE
Augustine, City of God. Against pagan cycles, Augustine gives history a single direction: from creation through redemption to a final end. The line is spiritual, not material, yet this Christian linear time is the mould into which later secular ideas of progress will be poured.
- 1620 CE
Francis Bacon, Novum Organum. Bacon argues that systematic observation and experiment can steadily enlarge human knowledge and mastery over nature, making the moderns superior to the ancients. His frontispiece of a ship sailing past the Pillars of Hercules announces a future without fixed limits.
- 1688 CE
Fontenelle, Quarrel of Ancients and Moderns. In the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns, Fontenelle argues that nature's powers are constant, so each generation, inheriting all that came before, can only grow wiser. Progress becomes a general law of the human mind, not merely of the sciences.
- 1750 CE
Turgot, Discourse on Progress. In his Sorbonne discourse, Turgot sketches humanity advancing through successive stages toward ever greater reason and refinement, driven by the accumulation of knowledge. He gives the idea of progress its first sweeping, world-historical form.
- 1755 CE
Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality. Against the optimists, Rousseau argues that the advance of arts, sciences and property has corrupted a once-free and contented humanity, breeding inequality and dependence. His counter-narrative haunts every later confidence that history simply gets better.
- 1795 CE
Condorcet, Sketch of Human Progress. Hiding from the Terror that would kill him, Condorcet writes a rapturous vision of humanity advancing through ten epochs toward equality, longer life and the indefinite perfection of the species. It is the high-water mark of Enlightenment faith in progress — written, poignantly, as the Revolution devoured its own.
- 1830 CE
Auguste Comte, positive philosophy. Comte declares that thought passes through theological, metaphysical and positive (scientific) stages, and founds sociology to guide the coming rational order. Progress becomes an ironclad law of history and the mission of a new secular priesthood of science.
- 1851 CE
Herbert Spencer, Social Statics. Spencer casts progress as a cosmic law of evolution from the simple to the complex, applying it to societies as well as organisms. His confident 'survival of the fittest' lends the idea a scientific gloss — and a hard edge later turned to justify inequality and empire.
- 1920 CE
J. B. Bury, The Idea of Progress. Writing after the carnage of the First World War, Bury traces progress not as a fact but as a modern idea with a datable history — and hints it too may pass. To study progress as an idea is already to loosen its grip as an unquestioned faith.
- 1947 CE
Horkheimer & Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment. In the shadow of Auschwitz, Horkheimer and Adorno argue that Enlightenment reason, meant to liberate, has turned into a tool of domination and mass barbarism. The critique shatters any naïve equation of technical advance with moral improvement.
- 2011 CE
Pinker, Rosling and the new optimists. Marshalling data on violence, poverty, health and literacy, writers like Steven Pinker and Hans Rosling argue that life has measurably improved and defend the Enlightenment project anew. Critics counter that such metrics ignore inequality and looming ecological limits — reopening the oldest argument about whether history truly gets better.
The milestones
c. 380 BCE
Hesiod & the classical world
The myth of decline
For much of antiquity, history moves away from a lost Golden Age or turns in endless cycles, as in Hesiod's descending ages of gold, silver, bronze and iron. Time brings decay or repetition, not improvement — the very opposite of a doctrine of progress.
426 CE
Augustine, City of God
History as a line, not a wheel
Against pagan cycles, Augustine gives history a single direction: from creation through redemption to a final end. The line is spiritual, not material, yet this Christian linear time is the mould into which later secular ideas of progress will be poured.
1620
Francis Bacon, Novum Organum
Knowledge advances cumulatively
Bacon argues that systematic observation and experiment can steadily enlarge human knowledge and mastery over nature, making the moderns superior to the ancients. His frontispiece of a ship sailing past the Pillars of Hercules announces a future without fixed limits.
1688
Fontenelle, Quarrel of Ancients and Moderns
The moderns surpass the ancients
In the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns, Fontenelle argues that nature's powers are constant, so each generation, inheriting all that came before, can only grow wiser. Progress becomes a general law of the human mind, not merely of the sciences.
1750
Turgot, Discourse on Progress
A universal history of improvement
In his Sorbonne discourse, Turgot sketches humanity advancing through successive stages toward ever greater reason and refinement, driven by the accumulation of knowledge. He gives the idea of progress its first sweeping, world-historical form.
1755
Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality
Civilisation as corruption
Against the optimists, Rousseau argues that the advance of arts, sciences and property has corrupted a once-free and contented humanity, breeding inequality and dependence. His counter-narrative haunts every later confidence that history simply gets better.
1795
Condorcet, Sketch of Human Progress
Perfectibility without limit
Hiding from the Terror that would kill him, Condorcet writes a rapturous vision of humanity advancing through ten epochs toward equality, longer life and the indefinite perfection of the species. It is the high-water mark of Enlightenment faith in progress — written, poignantly, as the Revolution devoured its own.
1830
Auguste Comte, positive philosophy
The law of three stages
Comte declares that thought passes through theological, metaphysical and positive (scientific) stages, and founds sociology to guide the coming rational order. Progress becomes an ironclad law of history and the mission of a new secular priesthood of science.
1851
Herbert Spencer, Social Statics
Progress as evolutionary law
Spencer casts progress as a cosmic law of evolution from the simple to the complex, applying it to societies as well as organisms. His confident 'survival of the fittest' lends the idea a scientific gloss — and a hard edge later turned to justify inequality and empire.
1920
J. B. Bury, The Idea of Progress
Progress becomes self-aware
Writing after the carnage of the First World War, Bury traces progress not as a fact but as a modern idea with a datable history — and hints it too may pass. To study progress as an idea is already to loosen its grip as an unquestioned faith.
1947
Horkheimer & Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment
The dark side of reason
In the shadow of Auschwitz, Horkheimer and Adorno argue that Enlightenment reason, meant to liberate, has turned into a tool of domination and mass barbarism. The critique shatters any naïve equation of technical advance with moral improvement.
2011 →
Pinker, Rosling and the new optimists
Progress by the numbers
Marshalling data on violence, poverty, health and literacy, writers like Steven Pinker and Hans Rosling argue that life has measurably improved and defend the Enlightenment project anew. Critics counter that such metrics ignore inequality and looming ecological limits — reopening the oldest argument about whether history truly gets better.