The world was growing more enlightened, Adams conceded. “Knowledge is more diffused. . . . Man, as man, becomes an object of respect.” But, he insisted, there was “great reason to pause and preserve our sobriety. Amidst all their exultations, Americans and Frenchmen should remember that the perfectibility of man is only human and terrestrial perfectibility. Cold will still freeze, and fire will never cease to burn; disease and vice will continue to disorder, and death to terrify mankind.
