A particular difficulty had done much to hinder a general admission
of progressive improvement in the past. The proposition that the
posterior is better and the late comers have the advantage seemed to
be incompatible with an obvious historical fact. We are superior to
the men of the dark ages in knowledge and arts. Granted. But will
you say that the men of the tenth century were superior to the
Greeks and Romans? To this question--on which Tassoni had already
touched--Perrault replies: Certainly not. There are breaches of
continuity. The sciences and arts are like rivers, which flow for
part of their course underground, and then, finding an opening,
spring forth as abundant as when they plunged beneath the earth.
Long wars, for instance, may force peoples to neglect studies and
throw all their vigour into the more urgent needs of self-
preservation; a period of ignorance may ensue but with peace and
felicity knowledge and inventions will begin again and make further
advances. [Footnote: The passages in Perrault's Parallele specially
referred to in the text will be found in vol. i. pp. 35-7, 60-61,
67, 231-3.]

It is to be observed that he does not, claim any superiority in
talents or brain power for the moderns. On the contrary, he takes
his stand on the principle which he had asserted in the "Age of
Louis the Great," that nature is immutable. She still produces as
great men as ever, but she does not produce greater. The lions of
the deserts of Africa in our days do not differ in fierceness from
those the days of Alexander the Great, and the best men of all times
are equal in vigour. It is their work and productions that are
unequal, and, given equally favourable conditions, the latest must
be the best. For science and the arts depend upon the accumulation
of knowledge, and knowledge necessarily increases as time goes on.