His significance is that he proclaimed in England at an opportune moment, and in a more impressive and startling way than a sober apostle like Priestley, the creed of progress taught by French philosophers, though considerably modified by his own anarchical opinions.
5.
Perfectibility, as expounded by Condorcet and Godwin, encountered a drastic criticism from Malthus, whose Essay on the Principle of Population appeared in its first form anonymously in 1798.

Condorcet had foreseen an objection which might be raised as fatal to the realisation of his future state.

Will not the progress of industry and happiness cause a steady increase in population, and must not the time come when the number of the inhabitants of the globe will surpass their means of subsistence?
Condorcet did not grapple with this question.

He contented himself with saying that such a period must be very far away, and that by then "the human race will have achieved improvements of which we can now scarcely form an idea." Similarly Godwin, in his fancy picture of the future happiness of mankind, notices the difficulty and shirks it.
"Three-fourths of the habitable globe are now uncultivated.

The parts already cultivated are capable of immeasurable improvement.