viously be quite consistent with a pessimistic
view of the destinies of humanity. He does indeed believe that it would
be impossible to improve the universal order, "not only for the
whole, but for ourselves in particular," and incidentally he notes
the possibility that "in the course of time the human race may reach a
greater perfection than we can imagine at present." But the significance
of his speculation and that of Malebranche lies in the fact that the old
theories of degeneration are definitely abandoned.

CHAPTER IV. THE DOCTRINE OF DEGENERATION: THE ANCIENTS AND MODERNS

1.

Outside the circle of systematic thinkers the prevalent theory of
degeneration was being challenged early in the seventeenth century. The
challenge led to a literary war, which was waged for about a hundred
years in France and England; over the comparative merits of the ancients
and the moderns. It was in the matter of literature, and especially
poetry, that the quarrel was most acrimonious, and that the interest of
the public was most keenly aroused, but the ablest disputants extended
the debate to the general field of knowledge. The quarrel of the
Ancients and Moderns used commonly to be dismissed as a curious and
rather ridiculous episode in the history of literature. [Footnote:
The best and fullest work on the subject is Rigault's "Histoire de la
querelle des Anciens et des Modernes" (1856).] Auguste Comte was, I
think, one of the first to call attention to some of its wider bearings.

The quarrel, indeed, has considerable significance in the history of
ideas. It was part of the rebellion against the intellectual yoke of
the Renaissance; the cause of the Moderns, who were the aggressors,
represented the liberation of criticism from the authority of the
dead; and, notwithstanding the perversities of taste of which they were
guilty, their polemic, even on the purely literary side, was distinctly
important, as M. Brunetiere has convincingly shown, [Footnote: See his
"L'evolution des genres dans l'histoire de la litterature."] in the
development of French criticism. But the form in which the critical
questions were raised forced the debate to touch upon a problem of
greater moment. The question, Can the men of to-day contend on equal
terms with the illustrious ancients, or are they intellectually
inferior? implied the larger issue, Has nature exhausted her powers;
is she no longer capable of producing men equal in brains and vigour t