"It is a pleasure to welcome this book into the English language, the more so for the general excellence of the translation and for the valuable ntroduction that Professor Stanley has given to Sorel's work. This Frenchman has been able to expose to the very core the modern idea of progress, the idea that mankind has progressed in linear fashion in the past, is now progressing, and will continue to progress indefinitely into the future, came into being in the French Enlightenment.