Chapter 2 No.2

How seriously the question between the Moderns and the Ancients-on whose behalf Boileau had come forward and crossed swords with Saint Sorlin-was taken is shown by the fact that Saint Sorlin, before his death, solemnly bequeathed the championship of the Moderns to a younger man, Charles Perrault. We shall see how he fulfilled the trust. It is illustrated too by a book which appeared in the seventies, Les Entretiens d'Ariste et Eugene, by Bouhours, a mundane and popular Jesuit Father.

In one of these dialogues the question is raised, but with a curious caution and evasiveness, which suggests that the author was afraid to commit himself; he did not wish to make enemies. [Footnote: Rigault notes that he makes one contribution to the subject, the idea that the torch of civilisation has passed from country to country, in different ages, e.g. from Greece to Rome, and recently from Italy to France. In the last century the Italians were first in doctrine and politesse. The present century is for France what the last was for Italy: "We have all the esprit and all the science, all other countries are barbarous in comparison" (p. 239, ed. 1782, Amsterdam). But, as we shall see, he had been anticipated by Hakewill, whose work was unknown to Rigault.]

The general atmosphere in France, in the reign of Louis XIV., was propitious to the cause of the Moderns. Men felt that it was a great age, comparable to the age of Augustus, and few would have preferred to have lived at any other time. Their literary artists, Corneille, and then Racine and Moliere, appealed so strongly to their taste that they could not assign to them any rank but the first. They were impatient of the claims to unattainable excellence advanced for the Greeks and Romans. "The ancients," said Moliere, "are the ancients, we are the people of to-day." This might be the motto of Descartes, and it probably expressed a very general feeling.

It was in 1687 that Charles Perrault-who is better remembered for his collection of fairy-tales than for the leading role which he played in this controversy-published his poem on "The Age of Louis the Great." The enlightenment of the present age surpasses that of antiquity,-this is the theme.

La docte Antiquite dans toute sa duree

A l'egal de nos jours ne fut point eclairee.

Perrault adopts a more polite attitude to "la belle antiquite" than Saint Sorlin, but his criticism is more insidious. Greek and Roman men of genius, he suggests, were all very well in their own times, and might be considered divine by our ancestors. But nowadays Plato is rather tiresome; and the "inimitable Homer" would have written a much better epic if he had lived in the reign of Louis the Great. The important passage, however, in the poem is that in which the permanent power of nature to produce men of equal talent in every age is affirmed.

A former les esprits comme a former les corps

La Nature en tout temps fait les mesmes efforts;

Son etre est immuable, et cette force aisee

Dont elle produit tout ne s'est point epuisee;

..... De cette mesme main les forces infinies

Produisent en tout temps de semblables genies.

The "Age of Louis the Great" was a brief declaration of faith. Perrault followed it up by a comprehensive work, his Comparison of the Ancients and the Moderns (Parallele des Anciens et des Modernes), which appeared in four parts during the following years (1688-1696). Art, eloquence, poetry the sciences, and their practical applications are all discussed at length; and the discussion is thrown into the form of conversations between an enthusiastic champion of the modern age, who conducts the debate, and a devotee of antiquity, who finds it difficult not to admit the arguments of his opponent, yet obstinately persists in his own views.

Perrault bases his thesis on those general considerations which we have met incidentally in earlier writers, and which were now almost commonplaces among those who paid any attention to the matter. Knowledge advances with time and experience; perfection is not necessarily associated with antiquity; the latest comers have inherited from their predecessors and added new acquisitions of their own. But Perrault has thought out the subject methodically, and he draws conclusions which have only to be extended to amount to a definite theory of the progress of knowledge.

A particular difficulty had done much to hinder a general admission of progressive improvement in the past. The proposition that the posterior is better and the late comers have the advantage seemed to be incompatible with an obvious historical fact. We are superior to the men of the dark ages in knowledge and arts. Granted. But will you say that the men of the tenth century were superior to the Greeks and Romans? To this question-on which Tassoni had already touched-Perrault replies: Certainly not. There are breaches of continuity. The sciences and arts are like rivers, which flow for part of their course underground, and then, finding an opening, spring forth as abundant as when they plunged beneath the earth. Long wars, for instance, may force peoples to neglect studies and throw all their vigour into the more urgent needs of self-preservation; a period of ignorance may ensue but with peace and felicity knowledge and inventions will begin again and make further advances. [Footnote: The passages in Perrault's Parallele specially referred to in the text will be found in vol. i. pp. 35-7, 60-61, 67, 231-3.]

It is to be observed that he does not, claim any superiority in talents or brain power for the moderns. On the contrary, he takes his stand on the principle which he had asserted in the "Age of Louis the Great," that nature is immutable. She still produces as great men as ever, but she does not produce greater. The lions of the deserts of Africa in our days do not differ in fierceness from those the days of Alexander the Great, and the best men of all times are equal in vigour. It is their work and productions that are unequal, and, given equally favourable conditions, the latest must be the best. For science and the arts depend upon the accumulation of knowledge, and knowledge necessarily increases as time goes on.

But could this argument be applied to poetry and literary art, the field of battle in which the belligerents, including Perrault himself, were most deeply interested? It might prove that the modern age was capable of producing poets and men of letter no less excellent than the ancient masters, but did it prove that their works must be superior? The objection did not escape Perrault, and he answers it ingeniously. It is the function of poetry and eloquence to please the human heart, and in order to please it we must know it. Is it easier to penetrate the secrets of the human heart than the secrets of nature, or will it take less time? We are always making new discoveries about its passions and desires. To take only the tragedies of Corneille you will find there finer and more delicate reflections on ambition, vengeance, and jealousy than in all the books of antiquity. At the close of his Parallel, however, Perrault, while he declares the general superiority of the moderns, makes a reservation in regard to poetry and eloquence "for the sake of peace."

The discussion of Perrault falls far short of embodying a full idea of Progress. Not only is he exclusively concerned with progress in knowledge-though he implies, indeed, without developing, the doctrine that happiness depends on knowledge-but he has no eyes for the future, and no interest in it. He is so impressed with the advance of knowledge in the recent past that he is almost incapable of imagining further progression. "Read the journals of France and England," he says, "and glance at the publications of the Academies of these great kingdoms, and you will be convinced that within the last twenty or thirty years more discoveries have been made in natural science than throughout the period of learned antiquity. I own that I consider myself fortunate to know the happiness we enjoy; it is a great pleasure to survey all the past ages in which I can see the birth and the progress of all things, but nothing which has not received a new increase and lustre in our own times. Our age has, in some sort, arrived at the summit of perfection. And since for some years the rate of the progress is much slower and appears almost insensible-as the days seem to cease lengthening when the solstice is near-it is pleasant to think that probably there are not many things for which we need envy future generations."

Indifference to the future, or even a certain scepticism about it, is the note of this passage, and accords with the view that the world has reached its old age. The idea of the progress of knowledge, which Perrault expounds, is still incomplete.