The press is "a memorable gift of celestial genius." In time all men will come to understand the principles of individual happiness and public felicity.

Then there will be established among the peoples of the earth an equilibrium of forces; there will be no more wars, disputes will be decided by arbitration, and "the whole species will become one great society, a single family governed by the same spirit and by common laws, enjoying all the felicity of which human nature is capable." The accomplishment of this will be a slow process, since the same leaven will have to assimilate an enormous mass of heterogeneous elements, but its operation will be effectual.
Here the genius interrupts his prophecy and exclaims, turning toward the west, "The cry of liberty uttered on the farther shores of the Atlantic has reached to the old continent." A prodigious movement is then visible to their eyes in a country at the extremity of the Mediterranean; tyrants are overthrown, legislators elected, a code of laws is drafted on the principles of equality, liberty, and justice.

The liberated nation is attacked by neighbouring tyrants, but her legislators propose to the other peoples to hold a general assembly, representing the whole world, and weigh every religious system in the balance.

The proceedings of this congress follow, and the book breaks off incomplete.
It is not an arresting book; to a reader of the present day it is positively tedious; but it suited contemporary taste, and, appearing when France was confident that her Revolution would renovate the earth, it appealed to the hopes and sentiments of the movement.

It made no contribution to the doctrine of Progress, but it undoubtedly helped to popularise it..