He describes a state of perfect happiness in a planet where beings live in perpetual contemplation of the infinite.
He appreciates the work of philosophers from Socrates to Leibnitz, and describes Rousseau as standing before the swelling stream, but cursing it.

It may be suspected that the writings of Leibnitz had much to do with Mercier's conversion.] The transformation of his opinions was the work of a few months.

He then came forward with the opposite thesis that all events have been ordered for man's felicity, and he began to work on an imaginary picture of the state to which man might find his way within seven hundred years.
L'an 2440 was published anonymously at Amsterdam in 1770.

[Footnote: The author's name first appeared in the 3rd ed., 1799.

A German translation, by C.F.Weisse, was published in London in 1772.