It was this order which kept things in their places, assigned to each its proper sphere and function, and drew a definite line, for instance, between men and gods.

Human progress towards perfection--towards an ideal of omniscience, or an ideal of happiness, would have been a breaking down of the bars which divide the human from the divine.

Human nature does not alter; it is fixed by Moira.
5.
We can see now how it was that speculative Greek minds never hit on the idea of Progress.

In the first place, their limited historical experience did not easily suggest such a synthesis; and in the second place, the axioms of their thought, their suspiciousness of change, their theories of Moira, of degeneration and cycles, suggested a view of the world which was the very antithesis of progressive development.
Epicurean, philosophers made indeed what might have been an important step in the direction of the doctrine of Progress, by discarding the theory of degeneration, and recognising that civilisation had been created by a series of successive improvements achieved by the effort of man alone.

But here they stopped short.