Progress is movement towards a perceived refined, improved, or otherwise
desired state. It is central to the philosophy of progressivism, which
interprets progress as the set of advancements in technology, science, and
social organization efficiency – the latter being generally achieved through
direct societal action, as in social enterprise or through activism, but being
also attainable through natural sociocultural evolution – that progressivism
holds all human societies should strive towards.
The concept of progress was introduced in the early-19th-century social
theories, especially social evolution as described by Auguste Comte and
Herbert Spencer. It was present in the Enlightenment's philosophies of
history.