---
title: "Progress"
chunk: 6/7
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:58:28.660757+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Faith in the liberating power of knowledge is encrypted into modern life. Drawing on some of Europe's most ancient traditions, and daily reinforced by the quickening advance of science, it cannot be given up by an act of will. The interaction of quickening scientific advance with unchanging human needs is a fate that we may perhaps temper, but cannot overcome... Those who hold to the possibility of progress need not fear. The illusion that through science humans can remake the world is an integral part of the modern condition. Renewing the eschatological hopes of the past, progress is an illusion with a future.
Recently the idea of progress has been generalized to psychology, being related with the concept of a goal, that is, progress is understood as "what counts as a means of advancing towards the end result of a given defined goal."

=== Antiquity ===

Historian J. B. Bury said that thought in ancient Greece was dominated by the theory of world-cycles or the doctrine of eternal return, and was steeped in a belief parallel to the Judaic "fall of man," but rather from a preceding "Golden Age" of innocence and simplicity. Time was generally regarded as the enemy of humanity which depreciates the value of the world. He credits the Epicureans with having had a potential for leading to the foundation of a theory of progress through their materialistic acceptance of the atomism of Democritus as the explanation for a world without an intervening deity.

For them, the earliest condition of men resembled that of the beasts, and from this primitive and miserable condition they laboriously reached the existing state of civilisation, not by external guidance or as a consequence of some initial design, but simply by the exercise of human intelligence throughout a long period.
Robert Nisbet and Gertrude Himmelfarb have attributed a notion of progress to other Greeks. Xenophanes said "The gods did not reveal to men all things in the beginning, but men through their own search find in the course of time that which is better."

=== Islamic era ===

With the rise of the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates and later Ottoman Empire, progress in the Islamic civilizations was characterized by a system of translating books (particularly Greek philosophy books in the Abbasid era) of various cultures into local languages (often Arabic and Persian), testing and refining their scientific or philosophical theories and claims, and then building upon them with their own Islamic ideas, theologies, ontologies, and scientific experimental results. The Round city of Baghdad was characterized as a model and example of progress for the region, where peoples of every religion and race sent their top students to study at its famous international academy called the House of Wisdom. Islamic Spain was also famed as a center of learning in Europe, where Jews and Christians flocked to Muslim halaqas, eager to bring the latest knowledge back to their countries in Europe, which later sparked the European Renaissance due the Muslim scholars' finesse in adapting classical knowledge (such as Greek philosophy) to Abrahamic contexts. Muslim rulers viewed knowledge, including both scientific and philosophical knowledge, as a key to power, and promoted learning, scientific inquiry, and patronization of scholars.

=== Renaissance ===

During the Medieval period, science was to a large extent based on Scholastic (a method of thinking and learning from the Middle Ages) interpretations of Aristotle's work. The Renaissance changed the mindset in Europe, which induced a revolution in curiosity about nature in general and scientific advance, which opened the gates for technical and economic advance. Furthermore, the individual potential was seen as a never-ending quest for being God-like, paving the way for a view of man based on unlimited perfection and progress.

=== Age of Enlightenment (1650–1800) ===

In the Enlightenment, French historian and philosopher Voltaire (1694–1778) was a major proponent of progress. At first Voltaire's thought was informed by the idea of progress coupled with rationalism. His subsequent notion of the historical idea of progress saw science and reason as the driving forces behind societal advancement.
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) argued that progress is neither automatic nor continuous and does not measure knowledge or wealth, but is a painful and largely inadvertent passage from barbarism through civilization toward enlightened culture and the abolition of war. Kant called for education, with the education of humankind seen as a slow process whereby world history propels mankind toward peace through war, international commerce, and enlightened self-interest.
Scottish theorist Adam Ferguson (1723–1816) defined human progress as the working out of a divine plan, though he rejected predestination. The difficulties and dangers of life provided the necessary stimuli for human development, while the uniquely human ability to evaluate led to ambition and the conscious striving for excellence. But he never adequately analyzed the competitive and aggressive consequences stemming from his emphasis on ambition even though he envisioned man's lot as a perpetual striving with no earthly culmination. Man found his happiness only in effort.
Some scholars consider the idea of progress that was affirmed with the Enlightenment, as a secularization of ideas from early Christianity, and a reworking of ideas from ancient Greece.