The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
CIVILIZATION / ADVANCE OF AND PROGRESS
The idea which you present in your letter of July 30th, of the
progress of society from its rudest state to that it has now attained,
seems conformable to what may be probably conjectured. Indeed, we have
under our eyes tolerable proofs of it. Let a philosophic observer
commence a journey from the savages of the Rocky Mountains, eastwardly
towards our seacoast. These he would observe in the earliest stage of
association living under no law but that of nature, subsisting and
covering themselves with the flesh and skins of wild beasts. He would
next find those on our frontiers in the pastoral state, raising
domestic animals to supply the defects of hunting. Then succeed our
own semi-barbarous citizens, the pioneers of the advance of
civilization, and so in his progress he would meet the gradual shades
of improving man until he would reach his, as yet, most improved state
in our seaport towns. This, in fact, is equivalent to a survey, in
time, of the progress of man from the infancy of creation to the
present day. I am eighty-one years of age, born where I now live, in
the first range of mountains in the interior of our country. And I
have observed this march of civilization advancing from the sea-coast,
passing over us like a cloud of light, increasing our knowledge and
improving our condition, insomuch as that we are at this time more
advanced in civilization here than the seaports were when I was a boy.
And where this progress will stop no one can say.
William Ludlow, 6 September 1824
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