I will add also that the superior vigour of the ancients is manifested in their moral and metaphysical systems.
But I do not allow myself to be influenced by such trifling objections, and I firmly believe that the human race is perpetually in a state of progression.
Friend. You believe also, if I rightly understand you, that knowledge, or, as, it is called, enlightenment, continually increases.
Tristano. Assuredly. Although I observe that the desire of knowledge grows in proportion as the appreciation for study diminishes. And, astonishing to say, if you count up the number of truly learned men who lived contemporaneously a hundred and fifty years ago, or even later, you will find them incomparably more numerous than at present. It may perhaps be said that learned people are rare nowadays because knowledge is more universally disseminated, instead of being confined to the heads of a few; and that the multitude of educated people compensate for the rarity of learned people. But knowledge is not like riches, which whether divided or accumulated, always make the same total. In a country where every one knows a little, the total knowledge is small; because knowledge begets knowledge, but will not bear dispersion. For superficial instruction cannot indeed be divided amongst many, though it may be common to many unlearned men. Genuine knowledge belongs only to the learned, and depth in knowledge to the few that are very learned. And, with rare exceptions, only the man who is very learned, and possessed of an immense fund of knowledge, is able to add materially to the sum of human science. Now, in the present time, it is daily more difficult to discover a really learned man, save perhaps in Germany, where science is not yet dethroned.
I utter these reflections simply for the sake of a little talk and philosophising, not because I doubt for a single moment the truth of what you say. Indeed, were I to see the world quite full of ignorant impostors on the one hand, and presumptuous fools on the other, I should still hold to my present belief that knowledge and enlightenment are on the increase.
Friend. Of course, then, you believe that this century is superior to all the preceding ones?
Tristano. Decidedly. All the centuries have had this opinion of themselves; even those of the most barbarous ages. The present century thinks so, and I agree with it. But if you asked me in what it is superior to the others, and whether in things pertaining to the body or the mind, I should refer you to what I said just now on the subject of progress.
Friend. In short, to sum it up in two words, do you agree with what the journals say about nature, and human destiny? We are not now talking of literature or politics, on which subjects their opinion is indisputable.
Tristano. Precisely. I bow before the profound philosophy of the journals, which will in time supersede every other branch of literature, and every serious and exacting study. The journals are the guides and lights of the present age. Is it not so?
Friend. Very true. Unless you are speaking ironically, you have become one of us.