CONDORCET, MARIE JEAN ANTOINE NICOLAS CARITAT, MARQUIS DE (1743-1794), French mathematician, philosopher and revolutionary, was born at Ribemont, in Picardy, on Sept. 17, 1743. He descended from the ancient family of Caritat, who took their title from Condorcet, in Dauphine. He was educated at the Jesuit college in Rheims and at the College of Navarre in Paris, where he showed his first promise as a mathematician. In 1769 he became a member of the Academy of Sciences, to which he contributed papers on mathematical and other subjects.
He was the friend of almost all the distinguished men of his time, and a zealous propagator of the religious and political views then current among the literati of France. He was induced by D'Alembert to take an active part in the preparation of the Ency clope,die. He was elected to the perpetual secretaryship of the Academy of Sciences in 1777, and to the French Academy in 1782, and was a member of other European academies. In 1785 he published his Essai sur l'application de l'analyse aux proba bilites des decisions prises a la pluralite des voix, a remarkable work which has a distinguished place in the history of the doctrine of probability; a second edition, greatly enlarged and completely recast, appeared in 1804, under the title of Elements du calcul des probabilites et son application aux jeux de hazard, a la loterie, et aux jugenients des hommes, etc. In 1786 he married Sophie de Grouchy, a sister of Marshal Grouchy, said to have been one of the most beautiful women of her time. Her salon at the Hotel des Monnaies, where Condorcet lived in his capacity as inspector general of the mint, was one of the most famous of the time. In 1786 Condorcet published his Vie de Turgot, and in 1787 his Vie de Voltaire. Both works were widely and eagerly read, and are perhaps, from a purely literary point of view, the best of Con dorcet's writings.
The outbreak of the Revolution, which he greeted with enthu siasm, involved him in a great deal of political activity. He was elected to represent Paris in the Legislative Assembly, and became its secretary. He was chief author of the address to the European Powers. On April 21 and 22, 1792, he presented to the Assembly a scheme for a system of State education, which was the basis of that ultimately adopted. Condorcet was one of the first to declare for a republic, and drew up the memorandum which led to the suspension of the king and the summoning of the national con vention (Sept. 4, 1792). In the convention he represented the department of Aisne, and was a member of the committee on the Constitution. His draft, however (presented Feb. was rejected in favour of that of H. de Sechelles. In the trial of Louis XVI. he voted against the death penalty. But his inde pendent attitude was becoming dangerous and his opposition to the arrest of the Girondists led to his condemnation and outlawry. He found a refuge at the house of Mme. Vernet, widow of the sculptor.
To occupy his mind, some of his friends prevailed on him to engage on the work by which he is best known, the "Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progres de l'esprit humain." Other works were written at the same time, including the "Avis d'un proscrit a sa fille." Some of them were published by friends at the time and others were issued after his death. Still interested in public affairs and believing that the house of Mme. Vernet was watched, he escaped, and after hiding in thickets and quarries for three days, entered the village of Clamart on the evening of April 7, His appearance betrayed him, and he was taken to Bourg la-Reine and imprisoned. Next morning he was found dead, whether from exhaustion or by poison is unknown.
His philosophical fame rests chiefly on the Esquisse mentioned above. Its fundamental idea is that of the continuous progress of the human race to an ultimate perfection. The disorders and violence of the revolution he attributed to bad institutions, from which humanity would ultimately free itself. He conceived the history of humanity as divided into nine epochs, advancing from the primitive life of hunting and fishing, through the pastoral to the agricultural age; with the invention of the alphabet at this stage the third period closes and authenticated history begins. The subsequent stages are the epochs of Greece and Rome and the middle ages, in two divisions, one closing with the crusades and the other with the invention of printing. The eighth epoch extends to the philosophical revolution effected by Descartes, and the ninth to the revolution of 1789, including the discoveries of Loke, Newton and Rousseau. In the tenth epoch, that of the future, he pictures man advancing to the destruction of all inequalities of opportunity and the perfection of individual human nature. The basis of all progress, he thought, was popular educa tion. The book is notable for its intense aversion to all religion, especially Christianity, and to monarchy. It had considerable influence on Comte.
Madame de Condorcet (b. 1764), who was some 20 years younger than her husband, was rendered penniless by his pro scription and compelled to support not only herself and her f our year-old daughter but her younger sister, Charlotte de Grouchy. After the end of the Jacobin Terror she published an excellent translation of Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments; in 1798 a work of her own, Lettres sur la sympathie; and in her husband's Eloges des academiciens. Later she co-operated with Cabanis, who had married her sister, and with Garat in publishing the complete works of Condorcet (1801—o4). She adhered to the last to the political views of her husband, and under the Consulate and Empire her salon became a meeting-place of those opposed to the autocratic regime. She died at Paris on Sept. 8, 18 2 2.
A Biographie de Condorcet, by M. F. Arago, is prefixed to A. Condorcet-O'Connor's edition of Condorcet's works, in 12 volumes (1847-49) . There is an able essay on Condorcet in Lord Morley of Blackburn's Critical Miscellanies. On Condorcet as a historical philosopher see Comte's Cours de philosophie positive, iv. 252-253, and Syst eme de politique positive, iv. Appendice General, 109-1 I 1 ; F. Laurent, Etudes, xii. 121-126, 89-110 ; and R. Flint, Philosophy of History in France and Germany, i. 125-138. The Memoires de Condorcet sur la Revolution francaise, extraits de sa correspondance et de celles de ses amis (2 vols., Ponthieu, 1824) , which were in fact edited by F. G. de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, are spurious. See also J. F. E. Robinet, Condorcet, sa vie et son oeuvre, and more especially L. Callen, Condorcet et la Revolution francaise (1904) • On Madame de Condorcet see Antoine Guillois, La Marquise de Condorcet, sa famille, son salon et ses oeuvres (1897) ; S. Krynska, "Entwicklung and Fortschritt nach Condorcet and A. Comte," in vol. 67 of Berner Studien z. Phil. u. ihrer Gesch. (1908).