15. Making Rules to Bring about Peace
Like many other intellectuals of his time, Condorcet (1743–1794)xxi believed that the Reformation helped bring about an improvement in the state of Europe. He was one of the defenders of perfectibility and thus considered that, as had happened after other historic periods of upheaval, progress should ultimately lead to positive changes.
Concerned with the common interests which united them, and the opposing interests they believed they had, the nations of Europe felt the need to recognise certain rules amongst themselves, to preside over their pacific ties, independently from treaties; even in the midst of war, other rules, being duly respected, would soften its outrages, diminish is ravages and, at the very least, prevent useless evils.
Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet, Outlines of an Historical View of the Progress of the Human Mind (1794).
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