of neologism, and on the necessity of maintaining our language as
it was when the authors of the great century wrote.

"Like a chemist, I sifted the argument and ascertained that it
meant:

"We have done so well, that we neither need nor can do better."

Now; I have lived long enough to know that each generation has
done as much, and that each one laughs at his grandfather.

Besides, words must change, when manners and ideas undergo
perpetual modifications. If we do things as the ancients did, we
do not do them in the same manner. There are whole pages in many
French books, which cannot be translated into Latin or Greek.

All languages had their birth, their apogee and decline. None of
those which have been famous from the days of Sesostris to that of
Philip Augustus, exist except as monuments. The French will have
the same fate, and in the year 2825 if read, will be read with a
dictionary.

I once had a terrible argument on this matter with the famous M.
Andrieux, at the Academie Francaise.

I made my assault in good array, I attacked him vigorously, and
would have beaten him had he not made a prompt retreat, to which I
opposed no obstacle, fortunately for him, as he was making one
letter of the new lexicon.