ABSTRACT
At the centre of neo-evolutionism’s appeal, of its virtues and its errors, stands the image of society as an unfolding of inherent potentialities. Ultimately, all the other principles of the evolutionist perspective depend upon this image. From it too derives the grandeur, the poetic power, of evolutionism, as of its revival. One could say that it makes evolutionism the most convincing expression of one of the two great paradigms of change in Western thought.
