those of Greek and Latin antiquity; but to know whether we have them in
fact. Without a doubt it is not impossible for there to be as big oaks
in the forest of Chantilli as in the forest of Dodona; but supposing
that the oaks of Dodona had spoken, it would be quite clear that they
had a great advantage over ours, which in all probability will never
speak.

Nature is not bizarre; but it is possible that she gave the Athenians a
country and a sky more suitable than Westphalia and the Limousin for
forming certain geniuses. Further, it is possible that the government of
Athens, by seconding the climate, put into Demosthenes' head something
that the air of Climart and La Grenouillère and the government of
Cardinal de Richelieu did not put into the heads of Omer Talon and
Jérome Bignon.

This dispute is therefore a question of fact. Was antiquity more fecund
in great monuments of all kinds, up to the time of Plutarch, than modern
centuries have been from the century of the Medicis up to Louis XIV.
inclusive?

The Chinese, more than two hundred years before our era, constructed
that great wall which was not able to save them from the invasion of the
Tartars. The Egyptians, three thousand years before, had overloaded the
earth with their astonishing pyramids, which had a base of about ninety
thousand square feet. Nobody doubts that, if one wished to undertake
to-day these useless works, one could easily succeed by a lavish
expenditure of money. The great wall of China is a monument to fear; the
pyramids are monuments to vanity and superstition. Both bear witness to
a great patience in the peoples, but to no superior genius. Neither the
Chinese nor the Egyptians would have been able to make even a statue