“A century is a formula; an epoch is an expressed thought. One such thought-expressed civilization passes to another. The centuries are the phrases of civilization; what she says here she does not repeat there. But these mysterious phrases are linked together: logic—the logos—is within them, and their series constitutes progress. In all these, phrase expressions of a single thought, the divine thought, we are slowly deciphering the word fraternity.
“All light is at some point condensed into a flame; likewise every epoch is condensed in a man. The man dead, the epoch is concluded: God turns over the leaf. Dante dead, a period is placed at the end of the thirteenth century: John Huss may come. Shakspere dead, a period is placed at the end of the sixteenth century. After this part, who contains and epitomizes all philosophy, may come the philosophers—Pascal, Descartes, Molière, Le Sage, Montesquieu, Diderot, Beaumarchais.”