He has no conception of an increasing purpose or underlying unity in the history of man, but he thinks that Providence--the old Providence of St.Augustine, who arranged the events of Roman history with a view to the coming of Christ--may, for some unknown reason, prolong indefinitely the modern age.

He is obeying the instinct of optimism and confidence which was already beginning to create the appropriate atmosphere for the intellectual revolution of the coming century.
His book was translated into English, but neither in France nor in England had it the same influence as the speculations of Bodin.

But it insinuated, as the reader will have observed, the same three views which Bodin taught, and must have helped to propagate them: that the world has not degenerated; that the modern age is not inferior to classical antiquity; and that the races of the earth form now a sort of "mundane republic.".