ironically professes to expect that the age of Montaigne will show a
vast improvement on his own; that men will have profited by the
experience of many centuries; and that the old age of the world will
be wiser and better regulated than its youth. Montaigne assures him
that it is not so, and that the vigorous types of antiquity, like
Pericles, Aristides, and Socrates himself, are no longer to be
found. To this assertion Socrates opposes the doctrine of the
permanence of the forces of Nature. Nature has not degenerated in
her other works; why should she cease to produce reasonable men?

He goes on to observe that antiquity is enlarged and exalted by
distance: "In our own day we esteemed our ancestors more than they
deserved, and now our posterity esteems us more than we deserve.
There is really no difference between our ancestors, ourselves, and
our posterity. C'est toujours la meme chose." But, objects
Montaigne, I should have thought that things were always changing;
that different ages had their different characters. Are there not
ages of learning and ages of ignorance, rude ages and polite? True,
replies Socrates, but these are only externalities. The heart of man
does not change with the fashions of his life. The order of Nature
remains constant (l'ordre general de la Nature a l'air bien
constant).

This conclusion harmonises with the general spirit of the Dialogues.
The permanence of the forces of Nature is asserted, but for the
purpose of dismissing the whole controversy as rather futile.
Elsewhere modern discoveries, like the circulation of the blood and
the motions of the earth, are criticised as useless; adding nothing
to the happiness and pleasures of mankind. Men acquired, at an early
period, a certain amount of useful knowledge, to which they have