Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
the transcendence of an omnipotent and omnipresent architect, parochial
views of history must be rejected as spiritually out of touch. On the flip side,
this means that the humble are exalted. The meek shall inherit the earth
precisely because their self-effacement opens them to the fullness of this
universal purpose and enables them to participate in its realization. In his
1791 essay on “The Nature and Purpose of Public Instruction,” Condorcet
had already declared his faith in a similar immortal destiny.
If this indefinite improvement of our species is a general law of nature,
as I believe, man must no longer consider himself as a being bound to
a fleeting and isolated existence, destined to vanish after an alteration
of happiness and sorrow for himself, of good and evil for those whom
chance has made his neighbors. He becomes an active part of a great
whole, a co-worker in an eternal creation. In a momentary existence on
this speck in space, he can by his efforts encompass all places, bind him-
self to all centuries, and still act long after his memory has disappeared
from the earth.
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Condorcet's universalism has the same equalizing value as its Christian
counterpart. Every servant of science is a citizen of the world. But while
a history that finds unity of meaning outside human volition may erase
conventional social stratifications, it could not do this without positing a
hierarchy all its own. This is what critics tune into when they recognize
the Eurocentric and imperialistic tendencies in modernism's various forms.
While the secularization of such universalist ideals undoubtedly contrib-
uted to the rise of democracy, the fact that this was undertaken by appro-
priating a Christian universalism that was also tied up with the notion of
divine election made it inevitable that modernism would harbor its own
formula for constructing hierarchies. The generic “man” that Condorcet
speaks of, much like the “proletariat man” of Marx and Engels, may belong
to nature in principle, but he clearly believes that such universal citizenship
could only be realized by the scientific elect. Because it is a “general law of
nature” that enables individuals to transcend their finite existence and to
realize their common human destiny, only those who come to grips with
nature through science (whose business it is to discover such laws of nature)
actually contribute to this historical purpose.
Just as Bensalem's separation from the world symbolized its role in work-
ing out the same universal history advanced by prophets and priests, the sep-
aration from worldly ways of conceptualization enacted now by empiricism
becomes the basis for scientific election. The world Condorcet envisions is
