Hitherto they have been neglected by the historian as well as by the statesman.

The true history of humanity is not the history of some men.

The human race is formed by the mass of families who subsist almost entirely on the fruits of their own work, and this mass is the proper subject of history, not great men.
You may establish social equality by means of laws and institutions, yet the equality actually enjoyed may be very incomplete.

Condorcet recognises this and attributes it to three principal causes: inequality in wealth; inequality in position between the man whose means of subsistence are assured and can be transmitted to his family and the man whose means depend on his work and are limited by the term of his own life [Footnote: He looked forward to the mitigation of this inequality by the development of life insurance which was then coming to the front.]; and inequality in education.

He did not propose any radical methods for dealing with these difficulties, which he thought would diminish in time, without, however, entirely disappearing.