The development of man is a closed system; its term is known and is within reach.

The other type is that of those who, surveying the gradual ascent of man, believe that by the same interplay of forces which have conducted him so far and by a further development of the liberty which he has fought to win, he will move slowly towards conditions of increasing harmony and happiness.

Here the development is indefinite; its term is unknown, and lies in the remote future.
Individual liberty is the motive force, and the corresponding political theory is liberalism; whereas the first doctrine naturally leads to a symmetrical system in which the authority of the state is preponderant, and the individual has little more value than a cog in a well-oiled wheel: his place is assigned; it is not his right to go his own way.

Of this type the principal example that is not socialistic is, as we shall see, the philosophy of Comte..