There is a constant trend in human affairs toward the perfectibility of mankind. This was plainly stated at the time of tile French Revolution and has been reasserted ever since that time, and with increasing plausibility.
Democracy must stand or fall on a platform of possible human perfectibility. If human nature cannot be improved by institutions, democracy is at best a more than usually safe form of political organization . . . . But if it is to work better as well as merely longer, it must have some leavening effect on human nature; and the sincere democrat is obliged to assume the power of the leaven. [Progressive]
Good heavens! what a foolish thing is this pretended perfectibility of the human race which is continually being dinned into our ears!
I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.
All history is man's efforts to realize ideals.
We are only now on the threshold of knowing the range of the educability of man-the perfectibility of man. We have never addressed ourselves to this problem before.
The perfectibility of the human mind is a theme that has captured our imagination for centuries - the notion that, with the right tools, the right approach, the right attitude, we might become better, smarter versions of ourselves.
They are men and women who tend to believe that the human being is perfectible and social progress predictable, and that the instrument for effecting the two is reason; that truths are transitory and empirically determined; that equality is desirable and attainable through the action of state power; that social and individual differences, if they are not rational, are objectionable, and should be scientifically eliminated; that all people and societies strive to organize themselves upon a rationalist and scientific paradigm.
It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and furnishes a complete answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the human species, that every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last.
