‘Civilization’ was incomplete, Holbach argued in the late eighteenth century, because human reason had yet to be employed intelligently to improve society. Numerous obstacles delayed ‘the progress of useful knowledge’ that could be applied to ensure the perfection of government, social institutions and morals, but nothing did more to block advances in ‘public happiness’, or the ‘progress of human reason’, or ‘the entire civilization of men’ than ‘the continual wars into which thoughtless princes are drawn at every moment’ (Holbach, cited in Elias 2012: 54–5). Central features of the so-called Enlightenment project are contained in that observation: the belief in reason as an instrument not only of social reform but of indefinite progress, and the vision of a cosmopolitan future in which all peoples are bound together by universal moral principles that demonstrate the unique accomplishments of European civilization (Schlereth 1977). Whether the so-called Enlightenment project is a caricature of the dominant ideas of the period is a matter to come back to later. The main issues are best approached by stating that the Enlightenment was a crucial phase in the long-term development of a civilizing process that was profoundly influenced by court rationality (Elias 2012: ch. 2) That process led to ideals of civility and visions of the ‘polite nation’ that combined cosmopolitan aspirations with confidence in the superiority of French standards of behaviour (Zurbuchen 2003; Gordon 1994, especially ch. 3; Gay 1969: 41ff.).