Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/46

 the trouble of being too minute. It was no wonder therefore if those to whom his Proposition appeared entirely new, condemned him of Sufficiency, the worst Composition out of the Pride and Ignorance of Mankind.

However, since his Reasonings are, generally speaking, very just, especially where he discourses of the Comparative Force of the Genius's of Men in the several Ages of the World, I resolved to make some Enquiry into the Particulars of those Things which are asserted by some to be Modern Discoveries, and vindicated to the Ancients by others.

The General Proposition which Sir William Temple endeavours to prove in this Essay, is this, "That if we reflect upon the Advantages which the ancient Greeks and Romans had, to improve themselves in Arts and Sciences, above what the Moderns can pretend to; and upon that natural Force of Genius, so discernable in the earliest Writers, whose Books are still extant, which has not been equalled in any Persons that have set up for Promoters of Knowledge in these latter Ages, and compare the Actual Performances of them both together, we ought in Justice to conclude, that the Learning of the pre-