ABSTRACT
By the sixteenth century European thought was emerging from the bondage of classicism. The ideals of the moderns are well represented in French writers, particularly in Jean Bodin, a social philosopher of the sixteenth century, and in Perrault and Fontenelle. Bodin divides human history into three periods, represented by the successive dominance of the Southeastern, the Mediterranean, and the Northern nations. The first period, which lasted about 2,000 years, is marked by development in religion, the second excels in practical sagacity, and the third is characterized by warfare and inventive skill. The theory of a Golden age and of subsequent human degeneration is discredited by the fact that the powers of nature remain uniform and that they do not in one century produce types of men and conditions which they do not duplicate in another. Unlike Machiavelli, he does not imply that human nature is immutable, but merely that natural capacities are permanent. Since primitive times, however, culture has developed to such an extent that, if the so-called “Golden age” could be recalled and compared with our own, we should find it an age of iron rather than one of gold. In this respect he reflects the views of Lucretius. Civilization, which is dependent upon the wills of men, is in constant flux. Every day appear new laws, customs, secular and religious institutions, and errors. Throughout these shifting scenes, cultures rise and fall with wave-like undulations. This does not imply that the human race has been degenerating; for, if this were the case, it would long since have reached the depths of iniquity and vice. On the contrary, throughout these oscillations man makes progress. The mythical Gold and Silver ages are tinseled misnomers for times when men lived no better than the beasts. From that state they have slowly risen to the culture of today which is characterized by manners and a rational social order. 1 The comparison of modern with ancient times is in optimistic vein. Knowledge, letters, and arts have their vicissitudes; they rise, develop, and flourish, then languish and die. The long fallow period, initiated by the fall of Roman civilization, was followed by a revival of knowledge and by an intellectual productivity which no other age has excelled. The scientific discoveries of the ancients deserve much praise; but the moderns have thrown additional light on phenomena which the ancients had explained, and their discoveries are of equal or greater importance. To find great accomplishments in various phases of civilization, said Perrault, it is not necessary to turn to the age of Pericles; inexhaustible possibilities of achievement are represented by the accomplishments of seventeenthcentury scholars and artists. The human race is eternal and its potentiality has not been exhausted in any civilization. Humanity has passed through the stages of infancy and youth, is at present in its maturity, and will not decline. 1 Perrault compares developments in the seventeenth century with the growth of an individual, the century having its infancy, childhood, adulthood, and, in the last quarter, its decline. Similarly, the stages in the development of the respective arts are comparable with those in the life of an individual. Nature is immutable. The dispositions of animals do not change. The lions of the African desert are as ferocious now as they were in the days of Ptolemy and Strabo. But the dispositions of men change, and, unlike the beasts, man is capable of making indefinite progress. Therefore, since nature is constant in gifts of mind as well as of body, contemporary man can duplicate the feats of the ancients:
A former les esprits comme à former les corp,
La Nature en tout temps fait les mêsme effort,
Son être est immuabl, et cette force aisée,
Dont elle produit tou ne s'est point epusée. 2
