progress

Forward movement or advance. Science progresses, providing more comprehensive theories about the world, and these theories can be tested. In the humanities, assessment of progress involves interpretation and is therefore harder, though not necessarily any less rational. Metaphysical philosophies of history as a form of purposive evolution (such as in the works of German thinkers G W F Hegel and Karl Marx) try to show that progress (variously defined) is inevitable, as it is in teleology (the belief that all change serves a purpose).