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CONDORCET. Esquisse... 1795 first edition

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Paris: Agasse, 1795. 8vo (200 x 125 mm). Manuscript page in an unknown hand bound-in at front, half-title. Early red half morocco gilt, marbled endpapers. Condition: very light foxing; lightly rubbed. first edition. A distinguished mathematician and friend of Voltaire, Condorcet played a major role in promoting the French Revolution's democratic principles. In the Esquisse, Condorcet traces the history of man through ten epochs, beginning with savagery, the development of civilization, and the principles of the Enlightenment. The ninth epoch spans from Descartes to the Revolution, and in the tenth, Condorcet predicts that equality of opportunity will prevail among all classes and nations and that man will improve intellectually, physically and morally. "A belief in the ultimate perfectibility of man lies at the root of all progressive thinking about the human condition ... but it was left to Condorcet to give it its finest and most durable expression" (Printing and the Mind of Man, 246).

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