The genesis of Rabelais' conception of progress illustrates the coming to terms of two divergent points of view in the sixteenth century, the humanists' belief in the past and the artisans' belief in the future. That a belief in the progress of knowledge played a significant role in the thought of certain fifteenth and sixteenth century precursors of the scientific movement has been well established. It seems equally certain that the idea of progress, though increasingly common among men who were engaged in the practical arts, had little appeal for most of the humanists of the time of Erasmus and before, preoccupied as they were with classical learning as the ne plus ultra. By the end of the sixteenth century the progressive view, which had received its main impetus from the side of the technological writers, had become part of the intellectual equipment of many classically educated men, and the scientific movement, heralded by Bacon and exemplified by Gilbert and Galileo, was in full swing.

If we investigate Elizabethan thought on the nature of human progress only in terms of J. B. Bury's strict definition of that idea as “a theory which involves a synthesis of the past and a prophecy of the future,” the results are likely to be no more fruitful than Bury found them. By these terms, a complete grasp of the idea of progress requires “an interpretation of history which regards men as slowly advancing … in a definite and desirable direction, and infers that this progress will continue indefinitely.”

Admittedly many Elizabethan concepts were unfavorable to the idea of progress. The Fall of Man accounted not only for original sin but also for intellectual and physical imperfections. It was a common belief, supported by the prophecies of Daniel and other religious teachings, that the end of the world was imminent.