There will be no relapse into barbarism.

The guarantees against this danger are the discovery of true methods in the physical sciences, their application to the needs of men, the lines of communication which have been established among them, the great number of those who study them, and finally the art of printing.

And if we are sure of the continuous progress of enlightenment, we may be sure of the continuous improvement of social conditions.
It is possible to foresee events, if the general laws of social phenomena are known, and these laws can be inferred from the history of the past.

By this statement Condorcet justifies his bold attempt to sketch his tenth period of human history which lies in the future; and announces the idea which was in the next generation to be worked out by Comte.

But he cannot be said to have deduced himself any law of social development.