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In history, '''progress''' is the [[idea]] of an advance that occurs within the limits of  [[collective]] [[morality]] and [[knowledge]] of its respective environment. Progress is not necessarily a monotonically increasing advance. The idea of eternal progress is in opposition to the cyclic theory of eternal return or eternal recurrence, which implies that with a [[finite]] amount of [[space]] and [[energy]] in the [[universe]], all events will recur indefinitely.

In history, '''progress''' is the [[idea]] of an advance that occurs within the limits of  [[collective]] [[morality]] and [[knowledge]] of its respective environment. Progress is not necessarily a monotonically increasing advance. The idea of eternal progress is in opposition to the cyclic theory of eternal return or eternal recurrence, which implies that with a [[finite]] amount of [[space]] and [[energy]] in the [[universe]], all events will recur indefinitely.

The idea of progress is often associated with the Western notion of a straight linear direction as developed by [[Aristotle]], or the more complex notion as developed by [[Plato]]. Both versions are found in Judeo-Christian [[doctrine]]. The idea spread during the [[Renaissance]] in early modern Europe, marking the end of the [[static]] view of [[history]] and society which characterized feudalism. Belief in progress was a dominant paradigm in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the Industrial Revolution.

The idea of progress is often associated with the Western notion of a straight linear direction as developed by [[Aristotle]], or the more complex notion as developed by [[Plato]]. Both versions are found in Judeo-Christian [[doctrine]]. The idea spread during the [[Renaissance]] in early modern Europe, marking the end of the [[static]] view of [[history]] and society which characterized feudalism. Belief in progress was a dominant paradigm in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the Industrial Revolution.

==Antiquity==

==Antiquity==

Historian J. B. Bury argued that thought in ancient Greece was dominated by the theory of world-cycles or the doctrine of eternal return, and was steeped in a [[belief]] parallel to the Judaic "fall of man," but rather from a preceding "Golden Age" of innocence and simplicity. [[Time]] was generally regarded as the enemy of [[humanity]] which depreciates the [[value]] of the world. He credits the [[Epicureans]] with having had a potential for leading to the [[foundation]] of a theory of Progress through their [[materialistic]] acceptance of the atomism of Democritus as the explanation for a world without an intervening [[Deity]]. "For them, the earliest condition of men resembled that of the beasts, and from this primitive and miserable condition they laboriously reached the existing fragile [[state]] of [[civilization]], not by external guidance or as a consequence of some initial [[design]], but simply by the exercise of human [[intelligence]] throughout a long period."

Historian J. B. Bury argued that thought in ancient Greece was dominated by the theory of world-cycles or the doctrine of eternal return, and was steeped in a [[belief]] parallel to the Judaic "fall of man," but rather from a preceding "Golden Age" of innocence and simplicity. [[Time]] was generally regarded as the enemy of [[humanity]] which depreciates the [[value]] of the world. He credits the [[Epicureans]] with having had a potential for leading to the [[foundation]] of a theory of Progress through their [[materialistic]] acceptance of the atomism of Democritus as the explanation for a world without an intervening [[Deity]]. "For them, the earliest condition of men resembled that of the beasts, and from this primitive and miserable condition they laboriously reached the existing fragile [[state]] of [[civilization]], not by external guidance or as a consequence of some initial [[design]], but simply by the exercise of human [[intelligence]] throughout a long period."