It would not help us, in following the growth of the idea, to analyse the works of Ferguson, Dunbar, or Priestley.

[Footnote: In his Essay on the History of Civil Society Adam Ferguson treated the growth of civilisation as due to the progressive nature of man, which insists on carrying him forward to limits impossible to ascertain.

He formulated the process as a movement from simplicity to complexity, but contributed little to its explanation.] But I will quote one passage from Priestley, the most eminent of the three, and the most enthusiastic for the Progress of man.
As the division of labour--the chief principle of organised society--is carried further he anticipates that ...

nature, including both its materials and its laws, will be more at our command; men will make their situation in this world abundantly more easy and comfortable; they will probably prolong their existence in it and will grow daily more happy....

Thus, whatever was the beginning of this world, the end will be glorious and paradisiacal beyond what our imaginations can now conceive.