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ftfoe peasant and the slave tiave trampled on the dust of heroes , as unconscious of their worth , as the cattle that crop the herbage &n their remains . Such is the boasted
improvement of the human race ; such the permanency of knowledge in natrons where she has once established her seat ! The tree perishes ; and the transplanted scions will , unless they be carefully fostered , experience in their turn a similar fate . ' Pp . 18—21 .
To Some of the questions which are here proposed , as if it were impossible to answer them otherwise than by a negative , we are disposed , nevertheless , to reply in the affirmative . We know no reason whatever for believing that India is not now the fountain of as
much knowledge as she ever was , or that her sages are less wise and oracular than in the days of Pythagoras . It is true ; , indeed , that other nations resort to this fountain , not to drink of it in the pious belief that it rises from the centre of the earth , or descends from the forehead of Brahma , but with the
unerring line of philosophical investigation , to detect its shallowness ; yet the stream itself flows as copiously as in former times . The obligations of the Greeks to the oriental philosophy are very much overrated . What there is of Egyptian , Persian , or Indian in the Greek philosophy , is precisely what is the least valuable . Gratuitous
theories of the origin of all things from this or the other element of matter , mystical allegories and fanciful analogies respecting the nature of God and of the soul , Metempsychosis , Pantheism , Idealism ; these are the points of affinity between the Greek and Oriental doctrines ; but the manly ,
practical philosophy of Socrates , the penetrating analysis of Aristotle , the systems of Zeno and Epicurus , which , though requiring to be tempered by a mixture of each other , and both to be completed by truths unknown to their founders , yet contain so much valuable elucidation of the motives of action and the
rules of duty ; all these are of native Grecian growth , and for these alone has posterity any obligations to own to the Greek philosophy . Again , we must express with great diffidence a
contrary opinion to Mr . Roscoe s , on a point of Italian history ; yet we cannot help thinking that the annals of papal Rome are far from exhibiting that intellectual inferiority to the times of the republic , Which his argument
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supposes . Reffere imperio populos has been equally tlie abject of pontiffs and of consuls ; the snotive of both about equally ambitious ; the means chosen with about equal scrupulosity ; but if the magnitude of the conception , and
the powers of mind requisite for carrying it into execution , he compared , the subtle dominion b ^ which papal Rome held the consciences of Europe in subjection , appears to us a , far greater proof of intellectual power , than the triumphs of the Republic .
When we hear of soldiers mounting guard with umbrellas under their araas , in a city which formerly sent out legions to conquer in the saads of Africa and the morasses of Germany , we are apt
to infer a degeneracy as great in other respects as in military qualities ; but the conclusion would be unfair under a government essentially imwarlike , and which uses soldiery only for purposes of state .
Before we can consent , with Mr . Roscoe , to " dismiss the idea that there is in the human mind an inherent tendency towards improvement , " the con > - clusion which he draws from the facts mentioned in the extract , we -must , take
the liberty of making some distinctions and limitations , which he would , probably , admit , although he has not stated them . To judge of the tendenr cies of the mind , we must consider it as detached from the influence of
those external and adventitious circumstances , which make no part of its own nature , though they powerfully controul the operation of its powein . Now we do not recollect a single instance in the history of literature , in which it has degenerated , unless
through the influence of bad social institutions , or foreign conquest . It does not , indeed , exhibit one scene of unvarying splendour ; the highest powers of genius are only bestowed ajt intervals ; extraordinary success leads to an imitation , which produces
feebleness and inferiority ; particular circumstances may encourage a disproportionate cultivation of some one faculty of mind , or department of literature , in particular periods ; J > ut
these are no examples of retrogradation ; let the mind be only left to itself , and after an interval , the length of which we cannot calculate , because we know not the law according to which intelT lectual power is distributed to mankind ,
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Review . —Roscoe on the Origin and Vicissitudes of Literature . 195
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1818, page 195, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2474/page/43/
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