the quality of civilization. These are already trite topics of social prevision.

But how can we envision great social transformations—and particularly
rapid ones in technologically backward countries—without considering
problems of arrangements placed before the public authorities, difficulties
created for them by awakened hopes which often wish to be served by
means the least apt to satisfy them, tensions born of impatience and
obstinacy, antagonisms coming more from passions than from self-interest.
And how can we avoid examining the transformations and shatterings of
political forms?

To instigate or stimulate efforts of social and especially political fore-
casting is the purpose of Futuribles, a research organization formed in Paris,
thanks to the aid of the Ford Foundation, by a small group presenting a
wide range of nationalities and specialities, brought together by a com-
mon conviction that the social sciences should orient themselves toward
the future. In some five years, over one hundred and twenty contributions
have been published, obtained from authors of fifteen different countries. ⁴
A liaison has been established across territorial frontiers and those of in-
tellectual disciplines, between minds which consider reflection about the
future as a social duty. This liaison seems to us destined to become organic.
Prognostications emitted from time to time, here and there, of one thing
and another, by well-meaning individuals or well-chosen committees,
clearly constitute only one stage of transition toward a continual com-
merce of visions of the future, fostered by contributions of the most di-
verse specialities, improved by mutual criticism.

But what is the mode of formation of these visions of the future? The
activity of forecasting proceeds: that is a fact. How does it proceed?
That is a problem, and my whole subject.

Why have I chosen this subject? I did not choose it, it imposed itself
upon me. Destutt de Tracy said very well: "It is the constant march of
the human mind. First it acts, then it reflects on what it has done, and by
so doing learns to do it still better." ⁵ It is the practice of forecasting that
leads us to its analysis whence its theory may arise. If it is natural and
necessary, as I shall indicate, for us to have visions of the future, we owe
them to an exercise of imagination which is secret, but which we can and
should seek out. Otherwise, we would only be able to set one opinion of
the future over against another: of their origins and meaning remaining
hidden, only the event could decide among these opinions. But if we want
henceforth to decide that one of them appears better founded, we must

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