In historiography, the Idea of Progress is the theory that advances in technology, science, and social organization inevitably produce an improvement in the general human condition. Meaning, people can be happier in terms of quality of life through economic development and the application of scientific progress.
"To the minds of most people the desirable outcome of human development would be a condition of society in which all the inhabitants of the planet would enjoy a perfectly happy existence."

John Bagnell Bury, FBA was an Anglo-Irish historian, classical scholar, Medieval Roman historian and philologist. He objected to the label "Byzantinist" explicitly in the preface to the 1889 edition of his Later Roman Empire. He was Erasmus Smith's Professor of Modern History at Trinity College Dublin (1893-1902), before being Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge from 1902 until his death.