from his own age in which learning has made her third visitation to
the world, a period which he is persuaded will far surpass that of
Grecian and Roman learning. [Footnote: Advancement, ii. 24.] If he
could have revisited England in 1700 and surveyed what science had
performed since his death his hopes might have been more than
satisfied.

But, animated though he was with the progressive spirit, as Leonardo
da Vinci had been before him, all that he says of the prospects of
an increase of knowledge fails to amount to the theory of Progress.
He prepares the way, he leads up to it; but his conception of his
own time as the old age of humanity excludes the conception of an
indefinite advance in the future, which is essential if the theory
is to have significance and value. And in regard to progress in the
past, though he is clearer and more emphatic than Bodin, he hardly
adds anything to what Bodin had observed. The novelty of his view
lies not in his recognition of the advance of knowledge and its
power to advance still further, but in the purpose which he assigned
to it. [Footnote: Campanella held its purpose to be the
contemplation of the wisdom of God; cp., for instance, De sensu
rerum, Bk. iv. epilogus, where the world is described as statua Dei
altissimi (p. 370; ed. 1620).] The end of the sciences is their
usefulness to the human race. To increase knowledge is to extend the
dominion of man over nature, and so to increase his comfort and
happiness, so far as these depend on external circumstances. To
Plato or Seneca, or to a Christian dreaming of the City of God, this
doctrine would seem material and trivial; and its announcement was
revolutionary: for it implied that happiness on earth was an end to
be pursued for its own sake, and to be secured by co-operation for
mankind at large. This idea is an axiom which any general doctrine