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, in a 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 of 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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