Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/351

 written before the Ancient Learning suffered much Decay.

Under this Head Philology and Divinity may very properly be ranked. I place Divinity last to avoid Repetition, because what I have to say concerning Modern Philology will strengthen many things that may be urged in the Behalf of Modern Divinity as opposed to the Ancient.

In speaking of the Extent and Excellency of the Philological Learning of the Moderns within these last 200 Years, I would not be mis-understood. For the Question is not whether any Modern Critick has understood Plato or Aristotle, Homer or Pindar, as well as they did themselves, for that were ridiculous; but whether Modern Industry may not have been able to discover a great many Mistakes in the Assertions of the Ancients about Matters not done in their own Times, but several Ages before they were born. For the Ancients did not live all in one Age, and though they appear all under one Denomination, and so as it were upon a Level, like things seen at a vast Distance, to us who are very remote from the youngest of them; yet, upon a nearer View, they will be found very remote each from the other; and so as liable to Mistakes when they talk of Matters not