No one, he says, can imagine or foresee the advantages which such an alliance of European states will yield to Europe five hundred years after its establishment.

Now we can see the first beginnings, but it is beyond the powers of the human mind to discern its infinite effects in the future.
It may produce results more precious than anything hitherto experienced by man.

He supports his argument by observing that our primitive ancestors could not foresee the improvements which the course of ages would bring in their rudimentary arrangements for securing social order.
3.
It is characteristic that the Abbe de Saint-Pierre's ideas about Progress were a by-product of his particular schemes.

In 1773 he published a Project to Perfect the Government of States, and here he sketched his view of the progressive course of civilisation.

The old legend of the golden age, when men were perfectly happy, succeeded by the ages of silver, bronze, and iron, exactly reverses the truth of history.