In the event that they were, Homer, Plato, Demosthenes cannot
be equalled in these latter centuries.
"Let us throw light on this paradox. If the ancients had more intellect
than us, it is that the brains of those times were better ordered,
formed of firmer or more delicate fibres, filled with more animal
spirits; but in virtue of what were the brains of those times better
ordered? The trees also would have been bigger and more beautiful; for
if nature was then younger and more vigorous, the trees, as well as
men's brains, would have been conscious of this vigour and this youth."
("Digression on the Ancients and the Moderns," vol. 4, 1742 edition.)
With the illustrious academician's permission, that is not at all the
state of the question. It is not a matter of knowing whether nature has
been able to produce in our day as great geniuses and as good works as
those of Greek and Latin antiquity; but to know whether we have them in
fact. Without a doubt it is not impossible for there to be as big oaks
in the forest of Chantilli as in the forest of Dodona; but supposing
that the oaks of Dodona had spoken, it would be quite clear that they
had a great advantage over ours, which in all probability will never
speak.
Nature is not bizarre; but it is possible that she gave the Athenians a
country and a sky more suitable than Westphalia and the Limousin for
forming certain geniuses.
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