Beschreibung:

CONDORCET, Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de (1743-1794). Esquisse d'un Tableau Historique des progrès de l'Espirit Humain , Paris: Agasse, L'an III de la République [1795]. 8° (203 x 115mm.). Half title. (R8 with short teat in text, a few leaves with frayed lower margins, final blank torn away, occasional light spotting and marginal damstaining). Contemporary mottled calf. (joints and edges rubbed, corners worn). FIRST EDITION. Born of an ancient family from the Dauphiné, Condorcet, close friend of d'Alembert, Turgot and Voltaire became secretary of the Academy of Sciences in 1782. He was a promoter of democratic growth during the revolution but fell from favour during the Terror and whilst in hiding wrote the Equisse . Posthumously published, the book traces the history of man through epochs, forecasting the destruction of inequality between nations and classes, and the improvement, intellectual, moral and physical, of human nature through equality of opportunity. (PMM 246).