- Should the savans
of Madrid hereafter embrace among the publications of valuable
manuscripts these Relaciones, they should be careful not to be
led into an error here, by the authority of a critic like Munoz,
whose criticism is rarely at fault.
Book II: Discovery Of Peru
Chapter I
Ancient And Modern Science. - Art Of Navigation. - Maritime
Discovery. - Spirit Of The Spaniards. - Possessions In The New
World. - Rumors Concerning Peru.
Whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the comparative
merit of the ancients and the moderns in the arts, in poetry,
eloquence, and all that depends on imagination, there can be no
doubt that in science the moderns have eminently the advantage.
It could not be otherwise. In the early ages of the world, as in
the early period of life, there was the freshness of a morning
existence, when the gloss of novelty was on every thing that met
the eye; when the senses, not blunted by familiarity, were more
keenly alive to the beautiful, and the mind, under the influence
of a healthy and natural taste, was not perverted by
philosophical theory; when the simple was necessarily connected
with the beautiful, and the epicurean intellect, sated by
repetition, had not begun to seek for stimulants in the fantastic
and capricious. The realms of fancy were all untravelled, and
its fairest flowers had not been gathered, nor its beauties
despoiled by the rude touch of those who affected to cultivate
them.
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