o
those whom she once produced; is humanity played out, or are her forces
permanent and inexhaustible?

The assertion of the permanence of the powers of nature by the
champions of the Moderns was the direct contradiction of the theory of
degeneration, and they undoubtedly contributed much towards bringing
that theory into discredit. When we grasp this it will not be surprising
to find that the first clear assertions of a doctrine of progress
in knowledge were provoked by the controversy about the Ancients and
Moderns.

Although the great scene of the controversy was France, the question had
been expressly raised by an Italian, no less a person than Alessandro
Tassoni, the accomplished author of that famous ironical poem, "La
Secchia rapita," which caricatured the epic poets of his day. He was
bent on exposing the prejudices of his time and uttering new doctrine,
and he created great scandal in Italy by his attacks on Petrarch, as
well as on Homer and Aristotle. The earliest comparison of the merits of
the ancients and the moderns will be found in a volume of Miscellaneous
Thoughts which he published in 1620. [Footnote: Dieci libri di pensieri
diversi (Carpi, 1620). The first nine books had appeared in 1612. The
tenth contains the comparison. Rigault was the first to connect this
work with the history of the controversy.] He speaks of the question
as a matter of current dispute, [Footnote: It was incidental to the
controversy which arose over the merits of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered.
That the subject had been discussed long before may be inferred from a
remark of Estienne in his Apology for Herodotus, that while some of
his contemporaries carry their admiration of antiquity to the point of
superstition, others depreciate and trample it underfoot.] on which he
proposes to give an impartial decision by instituting a comprehensive
comparison in all fields, theoretical, imaginative, and practical.

He begins by criticising the a priori argument that, as arts are
brought to perfection by experience and long labour, the modern age must
necessarily have the advantage. This reasoning, he says, is unsound,
because the same arts and studies are not always uninterruptedly pursued
by the most powerful intellects, but pass into inferior hands, and
so decline or are even extinguished, as was the case in Italy in the
decrepitude of the Roman Empire, when for many centuries the arts fell
below mediocrity. Or, to phrase it otherwise,