Note 58 — III. GENERAL
Reading edition
On the Radical Evil in Human Nature, W. vi. p. 20; Abbott’s trans. p. 326. “This opinion [that the world is constantly advancing from worse to better] is certainly not founded on experience if what is meant is moral good or evil (not civilisation), for the history of all times speaks too powerfully against it. Probably it is merely a good-natured hypothesis ... designed to encourage us in the unwearied cultivation of the germ of good that perhaps lies in us....”