Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/18

x one. The reader of Lucretius or Vergil, of Homer or Aristophanes, finds that even in the days of these writers, laments were heard of the degeneracy in physical strength, in mental power, in morality, of the men of their time: and from the time of Horace to the present day, men have always been found to preach the doctrine that mankind, week by week, and month by month, is becoming more and more unworthy of the glorious past. In the present instance the quarrel was chiefly concerned with the literary and scientific attainments of the ancients and moderns, though it was impossible that reference should not be made to other subjects. It was said, for example, that the introduction of Christianity gave the moderns great advantages over the ancients, and one Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin, an official at the court of Louis XIV, tried to prove that Christian stories were more suited for poetical treatment than the fictions which formed the subject-matter of the epics of Greece and Rome. Not content with the peaceable possession of his convictions,