REFLECTIONS ON NATURE AND ART. 99 
ence is remarkable, that, in those pursuits which 
more immediately regard art, mankind has but 
. little, if at all, advanced, during many centuries. 
Nay, it may be said rather to have retrograded; 
else we should not consider those productions of 
antiquity which time has spared to us, as fit models for 
our present imitation. That science, on the other 
hand, participates in this mutability, no one would 
think of denying ; but that it is not equally affected 
with art is very manifest. Before the invention of 
printing, indeed, there was good reason to appre- 
hend, that the world might lose the knowledge 
acquired by its sages: but the discovery of that 
noble art has given to the true philosopher a channel 
of permanent communication, with succeeding ages ; 
he can bequeath to posterity, ina compendious form, 
those truths which have resulted from a life of study ; 
and he can enable those, who wish to tread the path 
which he is quitting, to start from the point at which 
his enquiries terminated: so far as his discoveries 
extend, and so far as his deductions therefrom are 
sound, so far are his works imperishable, because 
they relate to things which are, in this world at 
least, unchanging. Had the ancients busied them- 
selves with the study of comparative anatomy, and 
bestowed upon the construction ef the common 
animals of their country, one half of the attention 
and talent that was lavished upon other studies, 
their writings on natural history would be just as 
valuable now, as they would have been then; and 
the works of Pliny, instead of being a tissue of 
fables and absurdities, would have held the same 
rank with us as those of a Savigny or a Cuvier. 
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