Peter is incomparably more beautiful than
the Capitol was.
It is curious with what assurance he maintains that there is nothing new
in our astronomy, nothing in the knowledge of the human body, unless
perhaps, he says, the circulation of the blood. Love of his own opinion,
founded on his vast self-esteem, makes him forget the discovery of the
satellites of Jupiter, of the five moons and the ring of Saturn, of the
rotation of the sun on its axis, of the calculated position of three
thousand stars, of the laws given by Kepler and Newton for the heavenly
orbs, of the causes of the precession of the equinoxes, and of a hundred
other pieces of knowledge of which the ancients did not suspect even the
possibility.
The discoveries in anatomy are as great in number. A new universe in
little, discovered by the microscope, was counted for nothing by the
chevalier Temple; he closed his eyes to the marvels of his
contemporaries, and opened them only to admire ancient ignorance.
He goes so far as to pity us for having nothing left of the magic of the
Indians, the Chaldeans, the Egyptians; and by this magic he understands
a profound knowledge of nature, whereby they produced miracles: but he
does not cite one miracle, because in fact there never were any. "What
has become," he asks, "of the charms of that music which so often
enchanted man and beast, the fishes, the birds, the snakes, and changed
their nature?"
This enemy of his century really believes the fable of Orpheus, and has
not apparently heard either the beautiful music of Italy, or even that
of France, which in truth does not charm snakes, but does charm the ears
of connoisseurs.
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