is even discernible in books on ethics and religion.

We must expect posterity to excel us as we excel the Ancients,
through improvement of method, which is a science in itself--the
most difficult and least studied of all--and through increase of
experience. Evidently the process is endless (il est evident que
tout cela n'a point de fin), and the latest men of science must be
the most competent.

But this does not apply to poetry or eloquence, round which the
controversy has most violently raged. For poetry and eloquence do
not depend on correct reasoning. They depend principally on vivacity
of imagination, and "vivacity of imagination does not require a long
course of experiments, or a great multitude of rules, to attain all
the perfection of which it is capable." Such perfection might be
attained in a few centuries. If the ancients did achieve perfection
in imaginative literature, it follows that they cannot be surpassed;
but we have no right to say, as their admirers are fond of
pretending, that they cannot be equalled.

5.

Besides the mere nature of time, we have to take into account
external circumstances in considering this question.

If the forces of nature are permanent, how are we to explain the
fact that in the barbarous centuries after the decline of Rome--the
term Middle Ages has not yet come into currency--ignorance was so
dense and deep? This breach of continuity is one of the plausible
arguments of the advocates of the Ancients. Those ages, they say,