"David Hume - Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hume David)

and universal principles. Those who cultivate the sciences in
any state, are always few in number: The passion, which
governs them, limited: Their taste and judgment delicate and
easily perverted: And their application disturbed with the
smallest accident. Chance, therefore, or secret and unknown
causes, must have a great influence on the rise and progress
of all the refined arts.

But there is a reason, which induces me not to ascribe the
matter altogether to chance. Though the persons, who cultivate
the sciences with such astonishing success, as to attract the
admiration of posterity, be always few, in all nations and all
ages; it is impossible but a share of the same spirit and
genius must be antecedently diffused throughout the people
among whom they arise, in order to produce, form, and
cultivate, from their earliest infancy, the taste and judgment
of those eminent writers. The mass cannot be altogether
insipid, from which such refined spirits are extracted. 'There
is a God within us,' says OVID, 'who breathes that divine
fire, by which we are animated.'[2] Poets, in all ages, have
advanced this claim to inspiration. There is not, however, any
thing supernatural in the case. Their fire is not kindled from
heaven. It only runs along the earth; is caught from one
breast to another; and burns brightest, where the materials
are best prepared, and most happily disposed. The question,
therefore, concerning the rise and progress of the arts and
sciences, is not altogether a question concerning the taste,
genius, and spirit of a few, but concerning those of a whole
people; and may, therefore, be accounted for, in some measure,
by general causes and principles. I grant, that a man, who
should enquire, why such a particular poet, as Homer for
instance, existed, at such a place, in such a time, would
throw himself headlong into chimaera, and could never treat of
such a subject, without a multitude of false subtilties and
refinements. He might as well pretend to give a reason, why
such particular generals, as Fabius and Scipio, lived in Rome
at such a time, and why Fabius came into the world before
Scipio. For such incidents as these, no other reason can be
given than that of Horace:

Scit genius, natale comes, qui temperat astrum,
Naturae Deus humanae, mortalis in unum...
...Quodque caput, vultu mutabilis, albus et ater.

But I am persuaded, that in many cases good reasons might be
given, why such a nation is more polite and learned at a
particular time, than any of its neighbours. At least, this is
so curious a subject, that it were a pity to abandon it
entirely, before we have found whether it be susceptible of
reasoning, and can be reduced to any general principles.