Page:An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.djvu/75

 every one of its individuals is in a capacity of deriving more from the common stock than he contributes to it, while each academician serves as a check upon the rest of his fellows. Yet, perhaps, even this fine institution will soon decay. As it rose, so it will probably decline, with its great encourager. The society, if I may so speak, is artificially supported; the introduction of foreigners of learning was right; but in adopting a foreign language also, I mean the French, in which all the transactions are to be published, and questions debated; in this there might have been an error. As I have already hinted, the language of the natives of every country, should be also the language of its polite learning, I may be supposed to carry the thought too far, when I say, that to figure in polite learning, every