now it was the idea of nature or of civilization. It was the latter idea that ultimately gained the upper hand and passed into the 19th century as the legacy of the Enlightenment. The idea of perfection as transcendental, fell away; only worldly perfection counted. The idea that perfection was a matter of grace, also fell by the wayside; man himself must strive for it, and if a single man could not accomplish it, then perhaps mankind could. As God had been the measure of perfection during the Middle Ages, so now man was: the measure had become smaller, more accessible. To the thinking of the 19th century, such worldly, human perfection might ultimately be attainable by everyone. And if not perfection, then improvement. This would be the great concept of the modern age. At the very midpoint of the 18th century, there occurred an exceptional momentary retreat from the idea of perfection. It was in the French Encyclopédie. The entry, "Perfection" (vol. XII, 1765), discussed only technical perfection, in the sense of the matching of human products to the tasks set for them; no mention was made of ontological, moral or esthetic perfection. Otherwise, the 18th century saw great declarations championing the future perfection of man, as in Immanuel Kant's Idee zu einer allgemeinem Geschichte (1784) and Johann Gottfried von Herder's Ideen (1784/91). Perfection was expected to come about by a variety of means. Partly it would be by way of natural development and progress (the view espoused by David Hume) but more so by way of education (precursors of this view included John Locke, David Hartley, and the leaders of the Polish Enlightenment) and by way of overt state action (Claude Adrien Helvétius, later Jeremy Bentham); reliance was placed in cooperation among people (Charles Fourier, 1808), later in eugenics (Francis Galton, 1869). While the foundations of the faith in the future perfectibility of man changed, the faith itself persisted. It linked the people of the Enlightenment with the idealists and romantics — with Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the Polish Messianists — as well as with the 19th-century Positivists and evolutionists; Herbert Spencer penned a great new declaration championing the future perfection of man. The idea of human perfectibility had, however, become more comprehensive. Man would attain greater perfection, in the sense that he would live more rationally, healthily, happily, comfortably. But there was no adequate