Chapter LXXI

In order for the law of progress to exist, every one must wish to create it; that is, when every individual applies himself to progress, then, and only then, humanity will be in progress.

This hypothesis serves to explain the identity of two contradictory ideas, free will and predestination.--Not only is there, in the case of progress, identity of free will and predestination, but that identity has always existed. That identity is history, the history of nations and of men.