It has indeed been claimed that various thinkers, both ancient (for
instance, Seneca) and medieval (for instance, Friar Bacon), had long
ago conceived it. But sporadic observations--such as man's gradual
rise from primitive and savage conditions to a certain level of
civilisation by a series of inventions, or the possibility of some
future additions to his knowledge of nature--which were inevitable
at a certain stage of human reflection, do not amount to an
anticipation of the idea. The value of such observations was
determined, and must be estimated, by the whole context of ideas in
which they occurred. It is from its bearings on the future that
Progress derives its value, its interest, and its power. You may
conceive civilisation as having gradually advanced in the past, but
you have not got the idea of Progress until you go on to conceive
that it is destined to advance indefinitely in the future. Ideas
have their intellectual climates, and I propose to show briefly in
this Introduction that the intellectual climates of classical
antiquity and the ensuing ages were not propitious to the birth of
the doctrine of Progress. It is not till the sixteenth century that
the obstacles to its appearance definitely begin to be transcended
and a favourable atmosphere to be gradually prepared.

[Footnote: The history of the idea of Progress has been treated
briefly and partially by various French writers; e.g. Comte, Cours
de philosophie positive, vi. 321 sqq.; Buchez, Introduction a la
science de l'histoire, i. 99 sqq. (ed. 2, 1842); Javary, De l'idee
de progres (1850); Rigault, Histoire de la querelle des Anciens et
des Modernes (1856); Bouillier, Histoire de la philosophie
cartesienne (1854); Caro, Problemes de la morale sociale (1876);
Brunetiere, La Formation de l'idee de progres, in Etudes critiques,
5e serie. More recently M. Jules Delvaille has attempted to trace