llegitimate to suppose that she could
at one time produce the men and conditions postulated by the theory of
the golden age, and not produce them at another. In other words, Bodin
asserts the principle of the permanent and undiminishing capacities
of nature, and, as we shall see in the sequel, this principle was
significant. It is not to be confounded with the doctrine of the
immutability of human things assumed by Machiavelli. The human scene has
vastly changed since the primitive age of man; "if that so-called golden
age could be revoked and compared with our own, we should consider
it iron." [Footnote: Methodus, cap. VII. p. 353.] For history largely
depends on the will of men, which is always changing; every day new
laws, new customs, new institutions, both secular and religious, come
into being, and new errors. [Footnote: Ib. cap. I. p. 12.]

But in this changing scene we can observe a certain regularity, a law of
oscillation. Rise is followed by fall, and fall by rise; it is a mistake
to think that the human race is always deteriorating. [Footnote: Ib.
cap. VII. p. 361: "cum aeterna quadam lege naturae conversio rerum
omnium velut in orbem redire videatur, ut aeque vitia virtutibus,
ignoratio scientiae, turpe honesto consequens sit, atque tenebrae luci,
fallunt qui genus hominum semper deterius seipso evadere putant."] If
that were so, we should long ago have reached the lowest stage of vice
and iniquity. On the contrary, there has been, through the series of
oscillations, a gradual ascent. In the ages which have been foolishly
designated as gold and silver men lived like the wild beasts; and from
that state they have slowly reached the humanity of manners and the
social order which prevail to-day. [Footnote: Ib. p. 356.]

Thus Bodin recognises a general progress in the past. That is nothing
new; it was the view, for instance, of the Epicureans. But much had
passed in the world since the philosophy of Epicurus was alive, and
Bodin had to consider twelve hundred years of new vicissitudes. Could
the Epicurean theory be brought up to date?

2.

Bodin deals with the question almost entirely in respect to human
knowledge. In definitely denying the degeneration of man, Bodin was only
expressing what many thinkers of the sixteenth century had been coming
to feel, though timidly and obscurely. The philosophers and men of
science, who criticised the ancients in special departments, did not
formulate any general view on