What was Thomas Jefferson's view of progress?

From the text:

Thomas Jefferson: Let the philosophical observer commence a journey from the savages of the Rocky Mountains eastwards towards our seacoast. These he would observe in the earliest stage of association, living under no law but that of nature. ... He would next find those on our frontiers in the pastoral state, raising domestic animals to supply the defects of hunting, .. . and so in his progress he would meet the gradual shades of improving man until he would reach his, as yet, most improved state in our seaport towns. This, in fact, is equivalent to a survey, in time, of the progress of man from the infancy of creation to the present day. And where this progress will stop no one can say?