Great IdeasStories, art and words
Progress and decline
Whether things get better over time, and why great powers fall.
The question
Do things get better over time? Why do great powers rise and fall?
How the books answer
Oldest first. Each stop is our own short summary of what the author argued; follow the link to the rung for the whole lesson.
c. 55 BC
Lucretius, On the Nature of Things (in the set: The Way Things Are)
Lucretius tells how early people learned to use fire, build houses, speak, farm and make laws. Step by step, by trial and error, civilization grew. But he also notes that new comforts brought new wants and new wars.
AD 413–426
Augustine of Hippo, The City of God
Augustine wrote after Rome was sacked. He argues that no earthly empire lasts forever and that history's true goal is beyond it, in the city of God. Progress, for him, is not in empires but in souls.
1627 (published after his death)
Francis Bacon, New Atlantis
Bacon imagines an island ruled by wise scientists who do experiments to benefit everyone. Knowledge, he hopes, will bring better medicine, inventions and lives. It is an early dream of progress through science.
“The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible.”
1759
Voltaire, Candide
Voltaire mocks the idea that all is already for the best. Yet he believed people could improve things by reason, work and tolerance. His famous ending, cultivate your garden, is a call to steady, practical effort.
1776–1781
Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (first half)
Gibbon wonders not why Rome fell but how it lasted so long. Great size, he says, made its fall natural. He ends hopefully, though: he did not think Europe would fall back into darkness, because useful knowledge, once gained, is hard to lose.
“The story of its ruin is simple and obvious; and instead of inquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long.”
lectures 1822–1831; published 1837
G. W. F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History
Hegel sees history as progress in freedom, from one free person in ancient empires, to some in Greece and Rome, to the idea that all are free. Progress comes through conflict, not smoothly. Great passions drive it forward.
“... we may affirm absolutely that nothing great in the World has been accomplished without passion.”
1890–1915
James George Frazer, The Golden Bough (selections)
Frazer proposed that human thought moved from magic to religion to science. Many later scholars found his scheme too simple and too sure of its own age. He also admitted that the future might bring something new.
1923
Willa Cather, A Lost Lady
Willa Cather shows the passing of the pioneer era on the prairie. The generous old railroad builders give way to sharp young men who care only about profit. Progress brings new wealth but loses something fine.
“Any one but Captain Forrester would have drained the bottom land and made it into highly productive fields.”
1925
Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World
Whitehead says the nineteenth century's greatest invention was the method of invention itself: organized science and engineering. Progress became something planned. He also warns that a narrow view of science can miss the values that give life meaning.
“The greatest invention of the nineteenth century was the invention of the method of invention.”
For young readers
Progress means getting better over time. People invented the wheel, then bikes, then cars and planes. Medicine has helped people live longer.
But not everything always gets better. Great empires like Rome grew and then fell apart. The great books ask: does the world keep improving, or does it go up and down? What is one thing that's better now than when your grandparents were young? Is anything worse?
Talk about it
- What invention do you think made the biggest difference?
- Is the world getting better? How would you decide?
- Gibbon asked why Rome lasted so long, not why it fell. Why might that be a smarter question?
- Can a new thing make life better and worse at the same time?
- What would you like to improve in the world?
Where else on the site
- Scientific Theories
- Big Business and Industry
- The Transcontinental Railroad
- Pioneers Head West
- Old and New
Every rung tagged with this idea:
These pages are our own short synthesis, written for families. They were inspired by Mortimer J. Adler's Syntopicon, the index of great ideas in volumes 1 and 2 of Great Books of the Western World, but the questions, summaries and groupings are ours, not the Syntopicon's. Short excerpts come from public-domain translations, credited where they appear.