Abstract
The emergence of the modern concept of development is closely linked with the awakening of a historical consciousness in western thought. Historiography shifted from the veneration of the sacred to the analysis of the secular, and human change came to be viewed as progressive and developmental. Salvationist dogma about the hereafter was replaced by visions of a utopia here on earth. Progressive development involves a natural ordering of values and offers an empirical route for ascertaining the nature of God and the good. This is an impetus for Piaget's genetic epistemology, and is an important, if unacknowledged, feature of developmental theory. It is also the source of troubling difficulties.
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