We cannot cast our eyes on a civilized country without seeing with astonishment how much this continual succession of small advantages, unperceived but incessantly repeated, adds to the primitive power of man.
It is because this succession of changes, which constitutes society, has three remarkable properties. It produces concurrence of force, increase and preservation of intelligence and division of labour.
The utility of these three effects is continually augmenting.
M. Destutt Tracy, Traité de la volonté, English translation titled A Treatise on Political Economy (Georgetown, D.C.: Joseph Milligan; W. A. Rind & Co. Printers, 1817), pp. xvi-xvii.