Beschreibung:

CONDORCET, Marie Jean Antoine, Nicolas Caritat, marquis de (1743-1794). Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain , Paris: Agasse, an III [1795]. 8° (215 x 132mm). Half-title, with the final leaf containing 2 printed title-labels. (Occasional very light browning and spotting.) Original wrappers with paper label on spine, uncut (spine slightly worn). FINE COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION. Written while Condorcet was in hiding during the terror but published after his subsequent capture and death in prison. 'In the Esquisse ... Condorcet traces the history of man through epochs ... The ninth describes the Revolution of Condorcet's own lifetime. The prophetic view of the tenth epoch shows Condorcet at his most original. He forecasts the destruction of inequality between nations and classes, and the improvement, intellectual, moral and physical, of human nature ... But it is as the most fully developed exposition of the progress of man that Condorcet's work is now remembered, and it is this which has given it its lasting appeal', PMM 246; En Français dans le Texte 196.