This dogma obviously eliminates the possibility of ethical improvement for collective humanity.

And so we find Mendelssohn, who was the popular exponent of Wolf's philosophy, declaring that "progress is only for the individual; but that the whole of humanity here below in the course of time shall always progress and perfect itself seems to me not to have been the purpose of Providence." [Footnote: See Bock, Jakob Wegelin als Geschichtstheoretiker, in Leipsiger Studien, ix.

4, pp.

23-7 (1902).] The publication of the Nouveaux Essais in 1765 induced some thinkers to turn from the dry bones of Wolf to the spirit of Leibnitz himself.

And at the same time French thought was penetrating.