320 ■ STUDIES OF NATURE. 



This is the reafon that, with us, parents do not love 

 their children, and that our old people affed fo 

 many frivolous taftes, to bring themfelves nearer 

 to a generation which is repelling them. 



Another confequence of the fame ftate of man- 

 ners is, that we have nothing of the fpirit of pa- 

 triotifm among us. The Ancients, on the con- 

 trary, had a great deal of it. They propofed to, 

 themfelves a noble recompenfe in the prefent, but 

 one ftill much more noble in the future. The 

 Romans, for example, had oracles which promifed 

 to their City that fhe fhould become the Capital 

 of the World, and fhe a6lually became fo. Each 

 citizen, in particular, flattered himfelf with the 

 hope of exercifing an influence over her deftiny, 

 and of preliding, one day, as a tutelary deity, over 

 that of his own pofterity. Their highefb ambition 

 was to fee their own age honoured and diftin- 

 guiihed above every other age of the Republic. 

 Thofe, among us, who have any ambition that re- 

 gards futurity, reftriâ: it to the being themfelves di- 

 flinguifhed by the age in which they live, for their 

 knowledge or their philofophy. In this, nearly, 

 terminates our natural ambition, direded, as it is,, 

 by our mode of education. 



The Ancients employed their thoughts in prog- 

 nofticating the charader and condition of their 



pofterity ; 



